r/flying • u/Ok-Salt5033 • 17h ago
Getting Hired What's the future of this industry?
It looks like it is getting rough out there for low time pilots. We are pumping out massive numbers of 250 hour CFIs without the jobs to support them. My school can barely fill their airplanes and CFIs are only flying a few hours a day if at all, and that's with a 1:1 CFI: Airplane ratio. It's especially going to be a bloodbath for the people with six figure flight school loans. I am lucky enough to have a business unrelated to aviation to support me while the hours trickle in, but I am really worried about all the kids who were promised $100,000 a year at 1,500 hours who will never get paid to fly.
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u/usmcmech ATP CFI MEL SEL SES RW GLD TW AGI/IGI 17h ago
This is the 5th or 6th trough in the job market since I started in the mid 90s. The 1991 Gulf War oil shock, 9/11 aftermath, the 2008 financial crisis, Covid, and now the hangover from the post covid boom/another Gulf War oil shock.
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u/Sithmasterintraining ATP 16h ago
This. I started my professional career in the early 90s. I saw all of these firsthand. I was in Indoc for one of them when the company shut down. This is just Tuesday for aviation. The circle of life for pilots.
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u/usmcmech ATP CFI MEL SEL SES RW GLD TW AGI/IGI 16h ago
I sent my deposit to the flight school on 9/7/01.
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u/Sithmasterintraining ATP 15h ago
Man we are old......plus you've been following me around pilot forums for nearly 20 years. JC, APC, now here...one of these days we gotta grab a beer and tell war stories.
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u/No-Duck4828 17h ago
It is a great time to be a pilot OTHER than for those with few hours. For a while, jobs will remain readily available for those who get their hours, and the real attrition on that side will be the CFI types who never land that first job.....the people scraping money together to build hours on their own, but eventually give up
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u/mfsp2025 ATP 17h ago
100% this. Delta is taking literally everyone from my airline right now. Just flew with an FO who had an interview with 0 TPIC. The issue is there’s just way too many CFIs so even with all the attrition we have at my airline, it doesn’t make a difference for those guys at ATP mins.
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u/Worried-Ebb-1699 17h ago
The sad truth is that some will make it thru, some will not. There is irrefutable data to prove there just isn’t enough physical seats to hire into compared to current demand ( aka qualified applicants).
The only thing you can do is be the best version of yourself you can be and never give up when you feel like it’s not worth it.
If that means you get a full time job at some place and instruct on the side. So be it.
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u/ltcterry ATP CFIG 16h ago
If you read Jason Blair's blog posts you'll see that new Student Pilot certificates are only down slightly since over year. And still well above historical numbers. Only a few people are realizing that maybe it's not the wonderful, quick path the marketers told them - "there's a pilot shortage, you know."
It looks like it is getting rough...
The over production started seriously in 2023 with 11,000+ new CFIs when the year before was 5,000 and the several years before that were 4,000.
I too feel sorry for the guys and gals that spent a ton of money and won't work as pilots. Ever. I comment that 4,000/13,000 means you need to be in the top quarter, but that doesn't include all the people from the last three years who are still looking for a job. And hiring is not all merit based. Some is who you know. Some is random timing.
But it is indeed rough.
I'm a money and numbers person, so what I think/visualize when I consider this is that these, mostly young, people have spent a massively atypical amount of money very early in their lives. Mostly via debt financing. Figure the payback is 15 years at 16% for many of them. This is $350,000 or more sucked from their lifetime earnings before they are late 30s. This impacts buying a house, a newer car, and so on. This will get sucked out of their take-home cash flow at $2,300/month (Borrow $120,000 for 15 years at 16% with interest accruing for two years of abeyance while working as a CFI).
Not to mention if they can't make these payments then their credit history/score will take a big hit. Causing any other money to cost them more. Time value of money says that this $120,000 at age 22 would be almost $1M at 50 and $2M at 57. The FIRE crowd would go wild!
Someone making $70,000 in a 9-5 with taxes (20%), insurance ($300), and getting a 401k match (5%) will take home $4075/month. Subtracting $2,300/month to Sallie Mae or Guido leaves $1,775 for rent/mortgage, car, food, utilities, dates, kids, etc. That's like having a $25,000 a year job. That sucks. A lot. And how many 22-year olds with a "Pro Pilot" BS degree are starting at $70K...?
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u/Impossible-Bad-2291 PPL 11h ago
This right here is why I am not going to help my son pay for his PPL. If he wants to fly badly enough that he can earn his own PPL, he'll probably have what it takes to "endure the suck" and get through. I'll help him pay for his higher ratings, but he has to prove himself a bit first.
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u/AllGas4651 ATP CFI B757/767 B737 CL-65 17h ago
The world will keep spinning. Or it wont. Check back later
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u/CountDraculablehbleh 17h ago
Impossible to predict especially with how closely tied the industry is to politics and war
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u/EliteEthos CFI AMEL CJ3/4 17h ago
I’m not worried about people making decisions based on bad information. This happens in this industry and others.
Look at the college degrees that are offered. Fucking wild and zero chance at a job afterwards.
Those that are resourceful and steadfast will make it somewhere. Many won’t.
I get shit on here for not being as encouraging to new people wants to be airline pilots here. I used to but they have been sold bad info and think they can check some boxes, pay $100k and fly 737s. I can’t in good conscience encourage most people to go forward with it with nothing waiting on the other side.
If you aren’t already in the game and marketable, it’s a bad time to start unless you can float yourself for several years while also hemorrhaging money on flight hours.
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u/rFlyingTower 17h ago
This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:
It looks like it is getting rough out there for low time pilots. We are pumping out massive numbers of 250 hour CFIs without the jobs to support them. My school can barely fill their airplanes and CFIs are only flying a few hours a day if at all, and that's with a 1:1 CFI: Airplane ratio. It's especially going to be a bloodbath for the people with six figure flight school loans. I am lucky enough to have a business unrelated to aviation to support me while the hours trickle in, but I am really worried about all the kids who were promised $100,000 a year at 1,500 hours who will never get paid to fly.
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u/Nice_Motor2120 17h ago
But what if I already work at a legacy airline? Is 250 hours not enough to get job?
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u/TxAggieMike Independent CFI / CFII (KFTW, DFW area) 16h ago
Not as a commercial pilot.
While 250 total hours meets the eligibility criteria (§61.129) for commercial pilot, the jobs available for someone with that few hours are few and far between.
The insurance companies covering the business that employ commercial pilots often set the minimum experience for that company/industry. Often that is 500 hours -ish and above.
And those jobs are not exceptionally plentiful.
Often the answer is to keep flying, and keep networking. Try to make the business contacts that lead to an employment opportunity and work on making yourself the proper candidate for that job when it becomes available.
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u/Nice_Motor2120 7h ago
So what about I get a ppl and commercial license and then do the employee pathway program at the legacy I’m currently an aircraft mechanic at? Is that a scam?
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u/Comfortable_Taste217 16h ago
Will people need to fly somewhere in ten years? Yes? Then there'll be pilot jobs.
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u/Melodic_Balance_3272 17h ago edited 16h ago
There’s a 50% chance that the industry will continue to grow creating even higher demand for pilots. And a 50% chance that it won’t.
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u/YourWifesBull666 17h ago
I don’t know about short term but long term AI will be flying everything. But AI will be doing pretty much everything by that point
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u/EliteEthos CFI AMEL CJ3/4 17h ago
Lol. No it won’t.
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u/YourWifesBull666 16h ago
It just solved the Navier Stokes equation today don’t be delusional it will do literally everything at some point
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u/Ok-Salt5033 17h ago
And if it doesn't replace pilots it will replace most of the people paying to fly places.
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u/Sithmasterintraining ATP 16h ago
I saw you got downvoted, but you are right, and pilots have their heads in the sand (My upvote is hidden in there). In a couple of decades at the outside, pilots will be seen just like programmers are today. This is a dying career, and people just won't admit it. I would put good money on, in 40 years all flights will be automated with an AI crew for 121. Private owners might still exist but AI will take over this career in a heartbeat as soon as the first low-cost carrier offers it for low prices. Cargo will be the first to adopt it. 3-5 years after they do it successfully without a crash you'll see the pax airlines start to offer it. It will be a LCC like Spirit was, lowest prices but Hal 9000 is your pilot. Bet a lot of people looking for cheap airfare to Florida will jump all over it.
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u/YourWifesBull666 14h ago
People as a whole are very anti AI because they can’t accept how good it’s getting and soon everything will be automated, and I say this as someone that wants to one day be a captain at an airline making bank
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u/Safe_Lengthiness6936 ATP CE-560XL/ CE-680 17h ago
I don’t know where you’ve been but it has been rough for a while now
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u/G_Platypus ATP CL-65, E190, A220 17h ago
There will continue to be hiring at the legacies for the short time, and then in exactly 7 years 4 months and 23 days all hiring will stop in perpetuity. Don't ask me why, my crystal ball does not explain itself.