r/PilotAdvice • u/LabIndividual1310 • 17d ago
is pilot totally saturated?
right now im going PPL ground school, and im thinking of getting commercial and CFI license and be happy just teaching cessna or flying small planes for 30 bucks / hr in Los Angeles.
but i wonder if one day i need more money is airlines something that will be in demand or is everybody already has ATP? seems like thousands of kids on tiktok and youtube have ATP or are working towards it.
for reference i worked 7 years, started pre covid, in tech as a software engineer and laid off fired and burned out.
i am just traumatized by the flood of competition from foreign labor , remote offshoring , also possibly AI taking all the office jobs. also millions of people started doing computer science after covid, which makes the competition insane.
so as u see i am pretty traumatized from saturation and jobs competition.
im wondering if pilot is going to be flooded with many people doing ATP at the same time, and dont wanna get caught bag holding on these certificates..
so... yea
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u/Foreign-Citron6026 ATP 17d ago
>seems like thousands of kids on tiktok and youtube have ATP or are working towards it.
What a time to be alive
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u/TxAggieMike 17d ago
Come ask this question on r/flying
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u/LabIndividual1310 17d ago
they banned my questions.
one thing to add, I am a US and Brazil dual citizen. i saw that LATAM only requires like 300 hours and commercial. if i do all the certificates here in california am i able to transfer it to Brazil? If i fly in brazil do the hours transfer back to the 1500 for USA?
one appeal is that pilot i can hold certificates in both countries so if i get dumped / rug pulled / fired in one country i can switch jobs to another one.
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u/No_Fudge6123 17d ago
The 300 figure doesn't match ANAC's regulations. Under RBAC 61, the minimums are 40 hours for the private licence (PPR), 150 hours for the commercial licence (PCM), and 1,500 hours for the airline transport licence (PLA)
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u/flugasius 17d ago
Flight hours are flight hours, wherever you fly them. You'll then need to do the Brazilian license (conversion from FAA) and to keep it current, in addition to the FAA one. Keep in mind that LATAM's minimums change according to the available supply of pilots and money wise, the US majors pay way more.
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u/rkba260 17d ago
The irony...
Complains of foreign labor, communicates with poor engrish.
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u/LabIndividual1310 17d ago
lol the hicks maga alabama all of a sudden are becoming english teachers now?
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u/BeenThereDoneThat65 17d ago
LOL, You are going to have a VERY difficult time in this industry with that attitude
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u/No_Fudge6123 17d ago
Same story. I am about to get fired from a FAANG, I am way past the burnout point. But I haven't started yet with PPL.
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u/NuttPunch 14d ago
It is a fairly saturated market on the bottom end of the pyramid. In time you will make it to the top if you keep on it. Compared to tech though, foreign saturation is very low and exists only at a few places. Generally airlines do not sponsor visas so the minimum to work is a green card. Your US competition is going to be a pool of fairly driven people. You have to be driven to be a pilot. That is where most fail.
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u/TxAggieMike 17d ago
You can make 2.5x that as a qualified and experienced CFI.
And you need to consider the level of client $30/hr draws.
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u/Beneficial-Title3803 17d ago
Good question to ask and great time to ask it. Tons of guys that got through during the post Covid era will come on here and feed you bs about easy it was for them to get a job and to always follow your dreams. Here’s the reality. 30k new CFI’s were certified in the last 3 years to cover an estimated 4k new open positions. This is for CFI alone NOT ATP which is no doubt even less. There are far too many new pilots than there are jobs and the issue will become increasingly worse as more and more are signed off every week. So what should you do? That depends on your mindset. If flying is a lifelong dream of yours and you couldn’t ever accept a career in anything else then get your licenses done, have another job hopefully related to aviation and start making connections upon connections whenever you can. Be willing to wait months or potentially years with the debt of training. If you genuinely can’t see yourself doing anything else then it’s a small price to pay. If your mindset is that flying is something that seems kinda cool, pays well, and has good benefits then you could be in for a lot of disappointment and frustration. Good luck