Maybe the current climate is effecting Pt. 141 schools more than 61? seems to be the case from what I'm seeing in this thread

yes, especially flight schools that have foreign contracts. Also, airline geared flight schools are suffering because more people are hesitant about taking out huge loans for an aviation career with the current situation. Whereas part 61 schools have a big portion of students who are just getting their ratings for fun.

I’m a p61 CFI in the NE and am fully booked, and very grateful!! Recently coming out of Covid, I thought it might be 50/50 pleasure/career... but upon recent further analysis of my students, it’s probably closer to 80/20... I’m grateful for the flexibility p61 provides!!

Seeing the drop off in career students is an interesting insight into human psychology.

This career is like playing the stock market. You want to get in when things are bleak and not when things have been going great for a long time. Most people seem to not grasp that concept.

Even before COVID, we all knew the reset was long overdue. We were just hoping retirements would muffle the devastation.

No such luck. Now that the reset has happened though I’d argue it’s a great time to get the training started. 3-4 years from now someone just starting out today will have their ratings and time logged as the airlines start looking to hire 1500 hour pilots again

I agree with what you're saying here. I have been hearing however that prospective career students cannot secure loans from banks because of the risk associated. If these guys cant borrow the money from a bank then they cant start training obviously

Also, most don’t know that training during a downturn is actually ideal. It isn’t exactly common knowledge outside of the airline circles.

Nope. BRA. =)

I'm one of those guys in training. Finishing up my Commercial rating by early October. I know the next few years are going to be tough but my hope is that by the time I've got 1500 hours the regionals will be looking for FOs again.

Just not 100% sure what to do between now and then. There's a glut of CFIs out there and that market is going to remain saturated for the duration until we see a recovery. I was hoping for Alaska 135 work, but that dream crashed when Ravn declared bankruptcy.

Maybe, maybe not.

Some people returned in the 2014-2019 timeframe because the career looked promising and nearly bulletproof for the first time in 50 years.

2020 exposed that as a lie and proved that even in the greatest "shortage" times this career is very volatile and unstable. Some have seen it for what it really is and got out.

I don't know where they'd go. I've worked in a variety of industries outside of aviation over the last 20+ years and they are ALL volatile and unstable. There are no guarantees out there. If you think aviation got hit by covid and that shows aviation is weak, you might want to look at just about every other industry out there having similar struggles.

Anyone getting out of the aviation game at this point is going to miss out on the peak that is ahead of us. Demand is going to come back like a freight train and a lot of the guys who took early retirement are done. They're not coming back.

The problem with that mindset is you aren’t considering the amount of highly I mean highly qualified pilots on the street. That’s just the beginning.....come October 1st you add thousands. The bleeding is going to continue until vaccine or people stop caring. The big three airlines are going to look nothing like they did pre Covid.


Side note.....I’m not trying to be a Debbie downer just giving my two cents. Been flying commercially for 20 years and the recovery will be extremely slow.

The only advice I can give is follow your dreams.

cheers