Originally Posted by
atpcliff
UND has one of the top aviation programs in the country. They train a LOT of flight students.
Was talking to a DAL check airman about a month ago. He had a student that was at UND. They said that UND now is 95% foreign students! A big changed from when I lived there...and I have heard the same at a number of flight schools. The US trains a lot of pilots...but today, many of them are not US citizens and/or don't have the right to work in the US. Without new US students, no new US pilots to replace the massive numbers of retirees.
DAL, since early 2015, has been losing TWICE as many pilots as those who turn age 65...they didn't realize so many would retire early.
First post. Woooooo.
Spot on about foreign students. I am working on my cfi at a large school in Florida. Out of 400ish students there was only ONE other person in my Cfi ground school. ONE. Every flight school that I know of down here with the exception of mom and pop places are all 95% foreign (mostly Chinese) students. There are just no domestic people starting training. This shortage is going to quickly get much much worse. I have no idea where all these new pilots are supposed to come from. From my viewpoint they just don't exist.