Originally Posted by
Mesabah
Staffing is going to get really bad. About 1/3 of the pilots we hire now at 9E are military retirees getting currency, or their pension is good enough they want to stay here for the schedule.
I just don't see many of today's young people, who need instant gratification, going through the pilot process; Most certainly not to the standard any mainline wants especially Delta.
I will say this, at my old flight school where I finished up my flying and then went on to instruct at....they used to have about 12 full time instructors, and that might be a low estimate. Now they have a cobbled together staff of a couple part timers and the owner himself trying to keep the operation going (what's left, they sold off over 3/4ths of the fleet ina about ten years). So clearly the student output is almost nil.
All the time builders I talk to are trying like hell to avoid getting their CFI, but at least some of them consider it. If it weren't for the 1,500 hour rule I think the instructor wanna be pool would be much more bleak.
I posted the 2015 original pilots in my tagline line below. The numbers in I believe every category went down...(though in 2014 there were several categories that rose slightly.). My guard unit used to have fairly qualified off the street/prior enlisted candidates applying for pilot slots. Now, people are barely getting through just their private or not even that and throwing in their stuff. It's kinda nuts.