Airlines seem to be starting to order aircraft in respectable numbers again after a period in which cancellations or postponements dominated. The Emirates order in June for another 32 Airbus A380s - bringing its planned A380 fleet to 90 aircraft - is the most spectacular of a steady stream of new contracts.
As orders accelerate, however, less thought seems to have been given to who is going to fly the new aeroplanes. Hardware requires skilled "liveware" to operate it, but airlines seem to be assuming that appropriately qualified pilots will just materialise as required.
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ROADSHOW
There are plenty of furloughed and recently trained pilots, but that supply will not last long when the recovery is established. Emirates has been running a roadshow looking to recruit 700 pilots, but needs the more experienced ones. The ab initio pilot supply is the problem in the medium and long term.
But action by big airlines such as Emirates, which are seeking experienced aircrew, starts "a circulation", says Mike Watt, chief executive of UK-based Cabair College of Air Training. When some of the regionals or smaller scheduled carriers start to lose pilots to the majors, the regionals recruit from low-hour pilots with commercial licences, maybe bringing them straight from graduation or pulling them out of instructing and other general aviation jobs.
Although Watt acknowledges that there is little demand for low-hour pilots among western European airlines, apart from the big low-cost carriers such as Ryanair and EasyJet, eastern Europe is hiring, and so is Asia. Any recent graduate from ab initio training can find a job somewhere in the world if he/she is willing to travel, he says.
The evidence of the looming global need is there for all to see. The current firm order backlog for the global airline industry stands at well over 7,500 aircraft, as listed by Flightglobal's Insight Fleetwatch from its ACAS database, and although a few monthly cancellations still feature, they are now dramatically outnumbered by new orders.
Boeing forecasts a global need for 448,000 new airline pilots to enter the industry over the next 20 years, and more than half a million new maintenance engineers. But many carriers are performing no pilot and engineer supply planning.
Long-term forecast demand for airline pilots and mechanics is significantly higher than it was before the global economic recession, according to new figures from Boeing's Training and Flight Services division. The company estimates that the average annual airline pilot demand for the next 20 years will be for 22,500 new pilots and 28,000 new mechanics to replace those retiring, and to cope with growth in the global airline fleet. Just two years ago in 2008, the Training and Flight Services division's forbear, Alteon, forecast that the average annual global industry needs for the 20 years from 2007 would be 18,000 pilots and 24,000 maintenance engineers.
North America heads the league in terms of the number of pilots it will need in the next two decades, at 112,000 (forecast by Alteon in 2008 at 98,000) and Europe follows at 97,000 (70,000). Other regional predicted requirements are China 61,000 (49,900), South-East Asia and Indonesia 34,000 (32,000), Latin America 32,000 (22,800), north-east Asia 19,000 (19,000), the Middle East 23,000 (17,500), the CIS 20,700 (11,500), Africa 13,200 (10,100) and Oceania 13,000 (7,200).
Boeing's projection of the totals for the next 20 years brings home the size of the task: the need to train 448,000 pilots and more than half a million mechanics. This raises the question as to whether the training infrastructure to meet demand can be created in time following the slump in airline investment in ab initio training since the recession began, which has seen capacity in the flight training sector reducing, and investment at flight training organisations put on hold.
SUPPLY CONCERNS
The International Air Transport Association, the US Federal Aviation Administration and the International Federation of Airline Pilots' Associations are all voicing concern about medium- and long-term pilot supply.
IATA foresaw the problem in 2007 when it launched its IATA Training and Qualification Initiative (ITQI) to deal with "the looming shortage of aviation professionals". It describes the need for ITQI as follows: "While the present economic downturn has brought a temporary reprieve to the urgency of this situation, IATA believes the shortage is a long-term issue. Therefore, we have not changed our goals or commitment to addressing this issue."
IATA works with the International Civil Aviation Organisation on ITQI, which is complementary to ICAO's Next Generation of Aviation Professionals programme. IATA describes ITQI's three main goals: "To modernise and revolutionise training and qualification schemes, focusing on competency-based training, including the multi-crew pilot licence; to identify the means to improve the attractiveness of our industry to younger generations and thereby increase the size of the pool of qualified candidates; to co-ordinate our efforts globally through harmonisation and market permeability to meet the needs of the future."
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SAFETY WORRIES
In the USA the Federal Aviation Administration is already beginning to worry about what the safety consequences for the US airline industry will be when the major carriers start recruiting pilots from the regionals, then the regionals start recruiting flying instructors from the flight training organisations to replace pilots lost to the majors, and the training industry consequently becomes seriously short of instructors.
This matters more in North America than elsewhere because the continent has no tradition of ab initio trainees going straight into the right-hand seats of majors. Ab initio pilots build experience through instructional work, commercial general aviation, and the regionals. Multi-crew pilot licences for the passenger-carrying majors, according to present US tradition, is unthinkable, and it will take a long time to change if it ever does.
There has been a very recent change in the legal requirement for minimum pilot flying time in the USA. As a result of the inquiry findings about the 2009 crash of a Colgan Air Bombardier Q400 at Buffalo, Congress has just passed a law requiring both pilots of any commercial passenger-carrying airliner to have a minimum of 1,500h flying time and a full air transport licence.
It is not yet clear what effect this will have on the airline and training industries in the USA, but it may not make a significant difference. Some airlines, even regionals, used to apply that standard as a matter of judgement a while ago, and the USA - unlike Europe - has a healthy general aviation industry in which pilots can obtain work while they build up their hours.
This includes the training industry, and anything that encourages newly qualified commercial pilots to become instructors for a couple of years to earn time toward their 1,500h will help to ensure that recovery in the airline industry will not suck the training industry dry of instructors.
Although a pilot shortage is not without precedent in the USA, this time it will arrive while the FAA is carrying out an unprecedented review of the whole process of preparing pilots for airline service, in the light of lessons learned from the Colgan crash.
The crew were FAA-licensed to fly commercial public transport aircraft, but somehow had avoided learning how to recognise and recover from a stall. The FAA's review of pilot qualifying skills may have been prompted by the same accident that caused Congress to mandate the minimum 1,500h rule, but the aviation agency has more of an open mind about what makes a competent pilot, and it is clear that flying hours alone is not seen as the answer. It is, for example, considering whether certain proven academic credits, or time in simulators, can substitute for some of those hours in the air.
Meanwhile, times are tough in the pilot training industry in most parts of the world, but it is still ticking over. Watts' Cabair College of Air Training attracts mostly self-sponsored student pilots, and he says he is encouraged by how many are prepared, even during a recession, to invest in flying skills.
At present the college has nearly 100 students at its Cranfield base at various stages of their training, and some 40 have recently celebrated their graduation. Representatives of Flybe were there to celebrate with four of the college graduates who are joining their line.
Watts admits that times are tight, and flight training organisations such as his are having to do what it takes to survive the drought while awaiting the return of the rains. But when the rain does come, it might turn out to be a monsoon.
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Source: Flight International
