atpcliff

There are more and more pilots starting training in the US every year...and almost all of them are foreign nationals, training for their airlines in Europe or Asia, and not eligible to work in the US. The shortage of CFIs is getting very high here in the US.
Direct Captain salaries in China are now up to at least $30K/month base pay.

BlackhawkIP

These are some of the numbers United airlines put out at the WIA conference. In the next 10 years 11,400 United pilots have to be replaced due to retirement and growth. United is planning to hire 263 pilots between now and May 2 with 500 to 600 new pilots in 2017 total. In 2018, United expects to hire 800 to 1000 pilots.
Other numbers that were pushed out by other airlines, in the next 20 years 50,000 pilots will need to be hired into the market to replace retiring pilots and to fill seats of new order aircraft across the industry.
It's a good time to be in aviation and seems to be for the foreseeable future.

serthwrmtym

Here is something that might give you an idea:


https://www.faa.gov/data_research/av...st_statistics/

atpcliff

The problem with FAA data is it includes all certificate holders. It is not broken down into pilots eligible to work in the US, and foreign pilots not eligible to work. For planning/forecasting purposes, they need to break down the data.

AboveAndBeyond

There are a large number of pilots coming to the airlines that thought they would never fly professionally. Think of them as doctors, lawyers, insurance salesmen, and business owners that have been flying around for 20 years in a little piston airplane and deciding it would be "fun" to be an airline pilot for their last few years of working. I know that we get lots of applications from them. Most have flown less than 100 hours in the last 5 years combined, and 1500 hours in the last 20-25 years of flying.

The problem with these guys is that they do very poorly in training, statistically. As soon as things start getting difficult, and they realize that it is more work than they thought it was going to be, they quit. Then, if they make it through training, they last a couple of months on reserve and quit then. It is not a glamorous job, and they are already set financially, so they quit. Less than 10% make it to their one year anniversary.

There are thousands of pilots with CMEL's or ATP's and current medicals that fall into this category.

The large numbers of current pilots is deceiving.

Like was stated above, anyone that has been around a major flight school in the US recently knows that the majority of the students are foreign nationals that are here to get their training and will leave as soon as they do. They are not able to work in the US, and most already have a job in their country.

atpcliff

Signs of not a shortage:

flysooner9

How long before the major airlines are hiring guys in the 3-4000 hour time frame on a regular basis? I'm just about to hit 3,000TT with about 600TPIC and just over 1,000 pt 121 time.

My main problem is my current corporate gig I'm only flying 200 hours a year so obviously not going to be building much time. Really can't afford to go back to a regional unless maybe as a DEC. Also first year pay at a spirit or frontier isn't feasible.