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[snoop1130]

Airlines struggle with global pilot shortage

By Jamie Freed, Chayut Setboonsarng and Allison Lampert

 

Image: Google

 

SYDNEY/BANGKOK/MONTREAL (Reuters) - A growing shortage of airline pilots is putting the industry's recent growth at risk as planes sit idle, higher salaries cut into profits and unions across the globe push for more benefits.

 

Carriers such as Emirates and Australia's Qantas Airways <QAN.AX> have poured resources into hiring, but struggled in recent months to use their jets as often as their business plans dictate because of training bottlenecks.

 

Pilots at Ireland's Ryanair <RYA.I> are forming unions across Europe seeking better working conditions, and those at Air France <AIRF.PA> are striking over pay.

 

In the United States, pilots who took pay cuts when carriers went bankrupt a decade ago are receiving big raises under new contracts now that airlines are posting strong profits.

 

The surge in employee costs, which rival fuel as the biggest strain on an airline's finances, comes as higher oil prices are already squeezing margins. Airlines say ticket prices have not kept pace with costs.

 

"These cost pressures are not about to stop imminently," International Air Transport Association (IATA) chief economist Brian Pearce said at the trade group's annual meeting in Sydney, where IATA lowered its airline profit forecast by 12 percent, citing higher fuel and labour costs.

 

"It's the symptom of a wider issue. If we look at developed economies, unemployment in the OECD has fallen to lows and we are starting to get wage pressures, of which pilot shortages are a symptom in our industry," he told airline bosses, many of whom expressed concern about a shortage on the sidelines of the IATA annual meeting this week.

 

Inflation is beginning to take hold in OECD economies after years of lying dormant, and pilot wages also reflect that, Pearce added.

 

The high cost of pilot training and several years of earlier hiring freezes in markets like the United States and Australia have deterred potential aviators from entering an industry that Boeing says will need 637,000 more pilots over the next 20 years.

 

IATA estimates airline traffic will nearly double during that period, so companies like Canadian training group CAE Inc <CAE.TO> and L3 Technologies <LLL.N> are building new flight simulators to cash in on training demand.

 

Planemakers Airbus and Boeing are also expanding into services like training, where margins are potentially higher than building jets.

 

And some airlines are planning to expand in-house training programs. Qantas says it will invest A$20 million ($15.26 million) in a new flying school to ensure a supply of pilots amid high turnover in its regional arm QantasLink. Emirates opened a $135 million fight training academy in November for up to 600 cadets.

 

"We have a social responsibility," Qantas Domestic CEO Andrew David said. "We can continue to take pilots from smaller players in this country and elsewhere but we need to give back and that is part of what we are doing here as well."

 

BIDDING WAR

 

Other airlines are having to look outside their home markets, competing with China, where experienced foreign captains are in high demand and airlines offer annual salaries of up to $314,000 - tax free.

 

"There is not so much a shortage of pilots as a rising cost of attracting and retaining the pilots you need, particularly the experienced ones," said Andrew Herdman, director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines. "There is a bidding war going on."

 

In countries where average wages are relatively low, pilots are being offered much cushier pay packages than other professions because they are internationally mobile and must speak English, the global language of aviation.

 

SriLankan Airlines has lost a "steady trickle" of pilots to Gulf carriers, SriLankan CEO Suren Ratwatte, who was an Emirates pilot, told Reuters.

 

"We pay pretty well because the pilots going (away from the company) go mainly to the Middle East, and we tend to get very close to Gulf salaries except (we are) living in Sri Lanka," he said. "Your lifestyle is pretty decent."

 

Thailand's Bangkok Airways PCL <BA.BK> is raising pilot salaries and benefits and hiring foreigners for international flying, President Puttipong Prasarttong-Osot said.

 

Pilot unions are taking advantage of shortages to ask for better conditions for their members.

 

Dan Adamus, president of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) Canada, said Canadian pilots are generally getting pay raises, although salaries at U.S. mainline carriers are higher than at Air Canada <AC.TO>.

 

"It's certainly harder for airlines to recruit qualified pilots," he said, which has led carriers to raise pay. "The pilots are going to go where there is better pay."

 

He estimates that about 1,000 Canadian pilots are flying for carriers overseas such as Emirates.

 

Airlines considered top employers in their home country, such as Qantas and IAG-owned British Airways, are not yet facing shortages of qualified applicants.

 

IAG <ICAG.L> Chief Executive Willie Walsh, a former pilot at Ireland's Aer Lingus, said that there were signs of "pinch points" within the broader industry but that he did not believe there was a shortage.

 

"The day you see me back flying is the day you know there's a pilot shortage," he said.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-6-6

[Grouse]

4 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Other airlines are having to look outside their home markets, competing with China, where experienced foreign captains are in high demand and airlines offer annual salaries of up to $314,000 - tax free.

I can vouch for that. My son is doing really well as a line training captain on that with housing on top! I hate that boy sometimes ?!  250 USD an hour ?

Edited June 6, 2018 by Grouse

[impulse]

11 hours ago, Grouse said:

I can vouch for that. My son is doing really well as a line training captain on that with housing on top! I hate that boy sometimes !  250 USD an hour 

 

Hope you've counselled him to live below his means and set some aside.  It's real easy to get addicted to a high salary level, only to find it going away when the price of fuel goes up, a terror attack scares people off flying, the economy tanks and people stay close to home on holiday, etc. 

 

It's happened several times in my career in the oil business where people took on huge mortgages, multiple car notes, a boat, and other toys, only to find themselves under water and under employed when the price falls.  Then, when it tanks, they own a home they can't afford in a place where they can't find a buyer, no insurance, no paycheck and no savings.

 

Not to mention the Chinese aren't big on letting foreigners make money any longer than absolutely necessary.  Give them a year or three for all those Aerospace academies (every city has one now) to start pumping out pilots by the millions.  That shortage could turn into a glut on a dime.

 

Edit:  Boeing says they'll need 637,000 pilots over 20 years.  That's just about 1 in 2,000 of the population of China, and around one out of 1,000 graduates they'll be popping out in that timeframe.  

 

 

Edited June 7, 2018 by impulse

[Grouse]

51 minutes ago, car720 said:

It is their own fault, in Australia at least.

I learned to fly a little Cessna C150A about 40 years ago and it was $35 an hour then.  Which was about a week's salary.  A commercial pilots licence which was about the lowest you needed for even the smallest of jobs was at least 2000 hours.  Most young men that would have loved to be a pilot could never afford this.  They want to have their cake and eat it too.  If they want pilots then open a school for all to attend and then weed out the good ones but at least give the youth a fighting chance.

My son had to spend several years flying in West Papua using Cessna Caravans to build hours before getting an A320 type rating. At least he is real aviator though. I never slept well during that time.

 

Be wary of low cost airlines that allow P2F. Here you can pay the airline to sit in the RH seat to build hours. These airlines should be forced to declare that fact.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Grouse

[thaiowl]

1 hour ago, Grouse said:

My son had to spend several years flying in West Papua using Cessna Caravans to build hours before getting an A320 type rating. At least he is real aviator though. I never slept well during that time.

 

Be wary of low cost airlines that allow P2F. Here you can pay the airline to sit in the RH seat to build hours. These airlines should be forced to declare that fact.

Sounds like Susi Air..proper flying! My son flies for a low cost airline in Thailand and loves it. Great company to work for.

[Grouse]

3 hours ago, thaiowl said:

Sounds like Susi Air..proper flying! My son flies for a low cost airline in Thailand and loves it. Great company to work for.

Correct! Glad your boy got on to jets ?

Edited June 7, 2018 by Grouse

[thaibeachlovers]

On ‎6‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 6:21 PM, snoop1130 said:

"It's certainly harder for airlines to recruit qualified pilots," he said, which has led carriers to raise pay. "The pilots are going to go where there is better pay."

Excellent result. The push years ago to privatise occupational training because it was cheaper for businesses to hire already qualified workers has now come back to bite them on the backside. That misguided action reduced the number of people training for practical occupations like nurses and plumbers etc.

That action also destroyed any loyalty workers have for their employers, so they have no reason to stay where wages are lower.

 

Also has beneficial result of less planes flying and polluting the atmosphere. Seems Man Made Climate Change supporters give a pass to the airline industry.

Domestic airlines absolutely should be closed down and replaced by high speed rail.

[CharlesSwann]

How about autonomous self-driving planes? Or planes operated remotely from the ground, which would solve the problems of hijackings, rogue pilots and pilot fatalities? Ruling out human error would make flying a lot safer.

 

There's only so many things that can go wrong on a flight and given that flying relies hugely on technology already it shouldn't be too big a leap. How much more difficult could it be than self-driving cars?

[ozfarang]

31 minutes ago, CharlesSwann said:

How about autonomous self-driving planes? Or planes operated remotely from the ground, which would solve the problems of hijackings, rogue pilots and pilot fatalities? Ruling out human error would make flying a lot safer.

 

There's only so many things that can go wrong on a flight and given that flying relies hugely on technology already it shouldn't be too big a leap. How much more difficult could it be than self-driving cars?

Yes, and how many people would step onto an aircraft with no pilots? Very few I would think. It will be a long time before autonomous civil jets take to the skies.

 

No comercial jet can take autonomously , needs pilot input. Autoland requires no human input until slowed to taxi speed.

 

You wouldn't believe what could go wrong in flight, MUCH more than you think.

 

CS are you a pilot?

[ozfarang]

On 6/7/2018 at 10:02 AM, impulse said:

Not to mention the Chinese aren't big on letting foreigners make money any longer than absolutely necessary.  Give them a year or three for all those Aerospace academies (every city has one now) to start pumping out pilots by the millions.  That shortage could turn into a glut on a dime.

 

 

 

 

A glut in China only, as the english skills of the chinese in the aviation industry is so poor these pilots would not be recruited by many foreign airlines, if any.

 

[impulse]

1 hour ago, ozfarang said:

A glut in China only, as the english skills of the chinese in the aviation industry is so poor these pilots would not be recruited by many foreign airlines, if any.

 

But those are the airlines allegedly paying $314,000 annual salaries to attract foreign pilots.

[CharlesSwann]

2 hours ago, ozfarang said:

Yes, and how many people would step onto an aircraft with no pilots? Very few I would think. It will be a long time before autonomous civil jets take to the skies.

 

No comercial jet can take autonomously , needs pilot input. Autoland requires no human input until slowed to taxi speed.

 

You wouldn't believe what could go wrong in flight, MUCH more than you think.

 

CS are you a pilot?

Agree it's not just a question of avoiding hitting things, but I don't see any problem. It's pure physics and best to take the human element out of it. Technology can provide every kind of feedback on conditions, and adjustments to controls made accordingly. Pretty inevitable for the future though I should think.

 

People will use automous planes once their safety record is proven. I would certainly not mind. In fact, I object now that my flights are currently subject to human error and the vaguaries of whether the pilot is having a bad day. What happens if both pilots had a heart attack/stroke during the flight?

 

I'm not a pilot. Of course pilots would be against autonomous planes to protect their jobs. They would be replaced by monitors/controllers on the ground. Sounds good to me.

[Morch]

2 hours ago, ozfarang said:

Yes, and how many people would step onto an aircraft with no pilots? Very few I would think. It will be a long time before autonomous civil jets take to the skies.

 

No comercial jet can take autonomously , needs pilot input. Autoland requires no human input until slowed to taxi speed.

 

You wouldn't believe what could go wrong in flight, MUCH more than you think.

 

CS are you a pilot?

 

Perhaps make autonomous cars work first, then try aircraft...

 

[CharlesSwann]

22 minutes ago, Morch said:

 

Perhaps make autonomous cars work first, then try aircraft...

 

With planes, it would be far easier as the sky is relatively empty, and as I understand it, flying is already fairly automated.

 

Perhaps I should sell this idea to Elon Musk.

[Morch]

9 minutes ago, CharlesSwann said:

With planes, it would be far easier as the sky is relatively empty, and as I understand it, flying is already fairly automated.

 

Perhaps I should sell this idea to Elon Musk.

 

"It would be far easier" says poster. That's sorted, then.

[Credo]

Automation has it's limits.   All kinds of things can be programmed into a computer for a plane and radar can detect things close.   They also have eyes on the ground that are helping.  Where people are needed is when something unexpected happens and happens quickly.   So, the pilot still needs to be very well trained.   

 

Cars have a whole different group of parameters to deal with.   

[CharlesSwann]

14 hours ago, Morch said:

 

"It would be far easier" says poster. That's sorted, then.

I'm visionary.?

[CharlesSwann]

10 hours ago, Credo said:

Automation has it's limits.   All kinds of things can be programmed into a computer for a plane and radar can detect things close.   They also have eyes on the ground that are helping.  Where people are needed is when something unexpected happens and happens quickly.   So, the pilot still needs to be very well trained.   

 

Cars have a whole different group of parameters to deal with.   

The technology is not there yet, of course, I'm talking about future direction. 

Human reactions vary from person to person. That's where human error lies. All that can be avoided by sophisticated enough modelling. Someone on the ground could still control the plane, just as in a flight simulator. No need to have a bloke up in the air (with a migraine or pending divorce?) flying the plane at all.

[impulse]

10 hours ago, Credo said:

Automation has it's limits.   All kinds of things can be programmed into a computer for a plane and radar can detect things close.   They also have eyes on the ground that are helping.  Where people are needed is when something unexpected happens and happens quickly.   So, the pilot still needs to be very well trained.   

 

Cars have a whole different group of parameters to deal with.   

 

The biggest problem with automating cars is dealing with the cars and pedestrians that aren't automated.  Seems like that would be less of an issue in controlled airspace. 

 

Not that I support fully automated commercial aircraft, because my computer goes tits up a lot more often than professional pilots.  And when it does, the only solution is hands on troubleshooting.

 

 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

15 hours ago, Morch said:

 

Perhaps make autonomous cars work first, then try aircraft...

 

Flight is far safer than roads with thousands of fallible humans in charge of large and deadly machines talking on their phones.

Drones already work without an on board pilot.

IMO, the move to pilotless passenger planes is just a matter of time.

[ozfarang]

15 hours ago, CharlesSwann said:

With planes, it would be far easier as the sky is relatively empty, and as I understand it, flying is already fairly automated.

 

Perhaps I should sell this idea to Elon Musk.

Keep dreaming CS.

[Morch]

9 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Flight is far safer than roads with thousands of fallible humans in charge of large and deadly machines talking on their phones.

Drones already work without an on board pilot.

IMO, the move to pilotless passenger planes is just a matter of time.

 

Car accident are more numerous, true. There are more cars about, and perhaps more space for human error. That said, car accidents usually result in less casualties per accident, making them easier to accept, perhaps.

 

Drones usually have human minders, other than when doing long stretches of relative monotonous activity. That's more or less comparable to planes being on auto-pilot during parts of the flight. Some satellites are similarly controlled.

 

That machine handled traffic will become a reality is almost certain. That were not quite there yet, and that it will take a while for it to be fully accepted as norm, or as safe is also true. We may be in the beginning of the age of transmission to fully automated traffic, but barring some serious technological breakthroughs, doubt older members will get to see this promised land.

[thaibeachlovers]

6 minutes ago, Morch said:

Drones usually have human minders, other than when doing long stretches of relative monotonous activity. That's more or less comparable to planes being on auto-pilot during parts of the flight. Some satellites are similarly controlled.

Of course drones are controlled by humans. I never intended to give an impression they aren't.

I visualise that planes fly by AI computer unless a crisis occurs, in which eventuality a skilled human takes over control.

[Morch]

8 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Of course drones are controlled by humans. I never intended to give an impression they aren't.

I visualise that planes fly by AI computer unless a crisis occurs, in which eventuality a skilled human takes over control.

 

It's like that bit about the ideal crew being a pilot and a dog - the pilot’s job will be to feed the dog, and the dog’s job to bite the pilot if he touches anything.

[Credo]

16 hours ago, impulse said:

 

The biggest problem with automating cars is dealing with the cars and pedestrians that aren't automated.  Seems like that would be less of an issue in controlled airspace. 

 

Not that I support fully automated commercial aircraft, because my computer goes tits up a lot more often than professional pilots.  And when it does, the only solution is hands on troubleshooting.

There are a lot of little things to overcome in automated cars.   I have one with all the safety features, but it can't quite sense that when the vehicle in front goes around a curve that it is still there and so it accelerates until it senses it.   It also sometimes senses that on a wide curve, a truck in the inside lane is actually in my lane and starts slowing down quickly until the road is straight again.   It also can't distinguish between a large piece of plastic blowing across the road and a pedestrian.   It can't predict that the deer standing in the ditch may just run into the road, etc., etc., etc., 

 

I, of course, can easily override all those situations, but they still exist.  Airplanes will probably lead the way in technological advances because there are outside controllers and fewer variables, although those variables are a lot more dangerous.     

[KiChakayan]

On 6/8/2018 at 4:31 PM, ozfarang said:

Yes, and how many people would step onto an aircraft with no pilots? Very few I would think. It will be a long time before autonomous civil jets take to the skies.

 

No comercial jet can take autonomously , needs pilot input. Autoland requires no human input until slowed to taxi speed.

 

You wouldn't believe what could go wrong in flight, MUCH more than you think.

 

CS are you a pilot?

Dunno why, but this make me think of Air France 447 (frosted pitot) where the two pilot ignored the "stall.. stall.. stall.. stall" alarm until it was too late. I reckon a computer would have dipped the nose and throttled up slightly.

 

(The only thing I have ever flown is a paraglider, where getting out of stall can be tricky as there are nasty overshoots. My instrumentation then consisted of my face and my ass..)