I agree someone who truly wants to fly airplanes should do it, but hopefully this data allows people to adjust their expectations to something more aligned with realistic expectations.
This kind of data is probably one of the reasons pilot loans are becoming more difficult to get, the banks are realizing the return on investment with current projections is just not sufficient to justify 80-220,000$ of educational expense to go out and make 17-45,000 for the next 5-8 years. Luckily on this educational bubble somebody in the chain of pilot development (the Banks) are realizing the numbers just don’t add up.
Having said that I think there is a lot of hope for the industry, particularly as more prospective students are educated on what a rational, and reasonable career progression will look like, they can then make the decision if the career is right for them. Only then do I think we will see airlines forced to invest more in their pilot supply.
Any time the airlines spend more on training and supplying pilots, the replacement cost for these professionals becomes higher, and anytime the replacement costs for professionals are high companies are naturally incentivized to retain them.
Before this time those who have paid for the cost for initial training and the supply of pilots has been the US Military, or out of pocket by pilots themselves. Due to companies having an inexhaustible supply of trained pilots, their has been no incentive to retain, actually its been the opposite. In this latter situation collective bargaining has been the only way pilots could provide reasonable work conditions and wages.