A Crisis in Flight Training
 

Taken from Flying Mag:

http://blogs.flyingmag.com/left_seat...-training.html
A Crisis in Flight Training
I just spent a day at Delta Connection Academy (DCA) listening to industry experts discuss the state of airline flying and the industry training programs that feed the profession.


The big questions raised at the round-table conference centered around what DCA, which sponsored the event, said was a coming shortage of pilots. Many furloughed pilots have been out of the cockpit for more than five years, and many of those pilots say that they don’t plan on coming back to an airline job. On top of that, training providers across the industry say that business is off. Several said during the conference that nobody believes there will be enough new pilots to fill the seats on regional airliners even in a couple of years.

The coming shortage--of pilots and students--is based on a number of factors, some of which are frightening to the training providers because there’s very little they can do about them.


Perhaps the biggest factor is the drying up of financing to prospective students. Many students who want to fly—and DCA says that it’s getting as many applications as ever—simply can’t get loans. DCA’s Jason Dauderman says that the company’s loan application acceptance rate is down to about 30 percent, and the amount of the loans that lenders approve has decreased, as well.

Part of why it’s harder for students to get loans is because of the sub-prime mortgage crisis that caused a worldwide recession. The same thing happened with student loans, as you might know, as the sub-prime market spread into the student loan market, with lenders okaying loans to inumerable students who had poor credit, poor academic records, and little prospects of paying off the loans. As a result, Sallie Mae, the private lending company, is writing off a billion dollars of bad student loans. Long story short, the crisis in student loans prompted many lenders to leave the student loan market altogether.


While the biggest reason that many lenders have fled the aviation student loan market is related to the financial crisis, the recession has made it harder than ever for students to pay off their loans, which are typically between $100,000 and $200,000 per student, if the entire two-to-four-year education is financed. And there's little chance of those costs coming down. Flight instruction, as Dauderman pointed out, is an expensive proposition. We as pilots understand that all too well.


And when lenders look at the risk, they see some big question marks. Will the student actually be able to earn their ratings? Some do wash out. And if they're successful, will they be able to land a job and be able to pay off their loans? And if they do wind up in the right seat of an airliner, will they be able to pay off those loans on the $18,000 annual salary they might earn for starters? Of course not.


And if Congress has its way, we might be looking at the need for first officers to have an ATP, a requirement that will add tens of thousands of dollars to these students' debt, making it more difficult for students to get loans and for school to attract young people to their programs. For the record, no one at the conference thought the right-seat ATP provision would improve safety.


Perhaps the most troubling question raised at the event was whether airline flying was a profession that any young person should pursue. One attendee, a bright young many who got his ratings at DCA and now flies left seat in an AirBus for JetBlue said that he loves his job and still backs the profession. But he admitted on numerous occasions that there were big factors--chiefly economic ones--that should give any prospective student pause.


Would I advise my kids to become airline pilots? As much as I love flying, in this day and age, it would be hard advice to give unless conditions changed substantially.


One thing has to happen. The airlines need to start paying starting pilots more money, a lot more money. A starting salary of $30,000 would go a long way toward making the transition to professional life if not attractive, then at least survivable, though barely. Starting teachers in almost every state make more. And there’s no doubt that the airlines should start subsidizing training a great deal more than they already do. Today their subsidies consist largely of partnerships with training academies to give jobs to their graduating students, a good marketing approach but one that does nothing to help students cut their indebtedness. Why not have the airlines foot part of the training bill? It would be to everyone’s advantage, especially theirs. After all, they're the ones who need the pilots.

And it's not all the regional airlines' fault. The major airlines share much of the blame. After all, they're the ones who on a daily basis squeeze their regional partners to cut costs--especially labor costs--to the bone, and then some.
And schools need to start pre-qualifying students, helping to ensure that those who can get loans have what it takes to get their ratings. That's a tough thing to do when times are hard. To be sure, some schools view a "qualified" student as one who can get a loan, as opposed to one who has the right stuff to fly an airliner. That kind of cynical view isn't fair to anybody.

Right now schools are doing a lot of selling from the point of view that pilots will need to make a sacrifice to get into the profession. (That's also talking point number one for the Regional Airline Association.) The truth is, that's the absolute truth. And it just might pay off for those pilots in the long run. I for one sure hope so,

But as it stands today, the sacrifice is just too much, far too much, to ask.

October 05, 2009 | Permalink

A very good article. Funding students to go to flight training is a very bad investment in my opinion. Im amazed that banks are still willing to do it.

With that said, I would not want to see ab initio programs take hold here in the US. There is something to be said about earning time making decisions as a CFI that will absolutely help later down the road in airlines/corp/cargo.

Lots of questions raised here. Good read.

30k survivable? LOL what a joke. ANY pilot that spends 100k to get through training should start at a minimum 70K a year. If there is a shortage the airlines have nobody to blame but themselves.

Absolutely if airlines all charged $2 more per ticket per passenger it would make a huge difference in pilot wages. I say just take it from the 9/11 fee, the TSA is just a dog and pony show anyways. The FFDO program is probably a big deterrent for would be hijackers with box cutters.

Agreed, This is their mess, let them clean it up...They had an oppurtunity to prepare when the 65 rule went in effect and all they did was furlough and restrict the pipe even further. We'll see how it goes with the press when we have to start importing our pilots regional FO's from China in 2015...

[QUOTE=BarbieTrash;690811 We'll see how it goes with the press when we have to start importing our pilots regional FO's from China in 2015...[/QUOTE]

Fortunately for us, they can't afford to do it either. The ones that come over here to train are subsidized by their own government or local airlines.

...I'm sorry, I'd post a longer response but I can't stop laughing....

For those of you who are active CFIs, are you seeing much training activity among US students? If so, what are their expectations? Why are they in this?

Well they aren't subsidized by their own airlines, as they make the pilots sign LIFETIME contracts, and sue them for millions if they quit. That's right, LIFETIME contracts. Think RAH is bad? Wait till you have to go up against Pilot Slaves.

I agree that in general, pilots are underpaid. However, I don't believe that just because someone chooses to spend 100k on training/education they are entitled to 70k a year. My sister has a masters in education that she paid in the neighborhood of 100k for. She's a teacher. She teaches because she loves it and feels it's important to contribute to our society. She'll probably never make 70k a year. If anyone deserves it, teachers do. Flying, in most cases is a purely selfish endeavor, we do it because WE want to, not to improve the lives of others. If you really think you are entitled to a 70% ROI in the first year of your career you have a lot to learn. Drop the entitlement mentality and get over yourself.