If you love flying and have the money? Start your training. Buy a plane when you’re sure you love it. Keep chipping away at your ratings, time and money permitting. Enjoy it, do it for fun. Having your own plane is great, and if it’s a reasonable airplane like a 172 (and you fly often) it’ll save you some money in many parts of the country.

Down the line, if the airlines are doing well and you still really want to do it? Consider making the jump.

That all said, I wouldn’t put eggs in the airline pilot basket until all this looks like it’s sorting itself out. I was ready to go to a regional when this hit, and got caught with my pants down. My plan is to press forward with an alternate career while this runs its course, flying when I can. When things look better, I’ll consider the airlines.

Looks like you’ve got options right now. Options are good, keep them open.

 

At the regionals (whipsaw). We've seen three regionals shut down, might be a couple more before this is done. In a couple years I expect to see some new regionals start up... non-union, $25/hour to start.

The major pilots aren't budging, they'll burn it down first IMO.

 

Ultimately, it all depends on customer demand. If customer demand promptly rebounds to previous levels, this whole coronavirus thing will have exacerbated the pilot shortage by early retiring some pilots while interfering with training and career progression of those who do not yet have the experience and numbers to get an ATP or be competitive for a major.

Strangely, the ones that seem most likely to be hurt by this are the legacies because I think international flying will be the last thing to come back. I can actually see SWA, F9, and NK prospering in the period immediately after recovery.

 

That's a foregone conclusion. Domestic will come back sooner. I don't know if the domestic carriers will prosper any time soon but they may be able to acquire some market share as the bigs re-trench and try to not bleed out while paying for their parked widebodies.

Not sure about HA, they might pick up on at least the HI/mainland flying as people opt for safer and cheaper HI vacations instead of further overseas. But they have a lot of Asian exposure too.

 

I can't tell you the number of people I know who are mad as hell that they had their vacations canceled. They are absolutely bursting at the seams to reschedule and take these trips. With that much pent up demand, it makes little sense as to why there won't be a massive rebound come sometime in the 2nd half of this year, possibly as early as the summer.

Lots and lots of people I know, and who are friends of friends feel this way.

 

That totally depends on how fast the training is. ATP (the flight school)? No way. A 4 -year degree and then maybe an additional year flight instructing, it may come back down to ATP mins by then.

 

As to paycuts at the regionals, again.........noooo oneeee whom I've ever spoken to there is in any kind of mood to take any sort of paycut. They ALREADY make very little, especially FO's and now that one needs 1500 hrs to get there, they have a MUCH different mindset than someone in the 2000's who was able to get to the regionals with less than 500 hrs. They've already paid their dues with low pay from 250-1500 CFI'ing and are in no mood to do that again. They will simply find another career if it comes to that.

 

The airlines will DUMP summer prices. Hotels and air fare to popular destinations will be damn near free just to get people in the door. Vegas will practically pay people to visit this summer. And once the cruise lines get up and running again you'll be able to get a 7 day cruise for probably $10/day.

At least for a month or two, maybe a bit longer.

The travel industry will work as a loss leader just to get people used to travelling again.

So even people who are near broke or maybe even unemployed will still be able to take small mini-vacations this summer (especially if on a credit card).

And then once people start to see that they aren't going to die because they boarded an aircraft, stayed in a hotel, or took a cruise, things will start to return to a more normalized economic flow.

 

agreed. I’m hearing more and more folks saying they can’t wait to travel.

 

Sadly wanting to travel and being able to travel are very different things. In order to justify the same amount of pilots after the Wuhan virus. There has to be 100% of Jan 2020 demand and revenue on the backside of this.

The travel industry will absolutely drop prices to get people traveling again. It’s important to remember though that these tickets being sold are still at a loss and do little to stop the hemorrhaging of money. The airlines have to be able to fill planes with passengers for ticket prices that at a minimum break even.

With unemployment rates expected to hit 30% that is a good starting point to see where air travel will stabilize. I think best case scenario the majority of airlines will be at best 30% smaller this time next year. When hiring does return, just like it always does, it will take years just to hire and train all the furloughed pilots. This is going to be a long recovery.

If you want to be optimistic just hope it doesn’t take as long as the lost decade. Payouts are going to be on the table for absolutely everyone just like they always are.

It’s great to hope for the best but airlines are like an abusive spouse. No matter how many times they beat you when mad, it does no one any good to pretend this time will be different and they have changed.

I truly hope the best for everyone.