I wanna preface this by saying that if you have been affected by southwest cancelling your flight; I hope you understand that I’m not making excuses for southwest. Im just going to try to explain why this was an impending disaster, and why being a pilot sucks
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached a critical shortage of pilots in the US. The FAA estimates that 8,000 pilots are needed to fill the gap. While there are many currently working to be a pilots. The FAA has some of the strictest retirement policies, meaning just as many are retiring. Globally it is estimated this demand will increase to 80,000 pilots by 2032. While flying is often romanticized and seen as a “fun” job, not enough people are attending flight school. What is going on?
Becoming a pilot is hard. The FAA guidelines are pretty much standard throughout the world, with Europe being a little more strict in some aspects. There is a lot of risk involved for pilots. You are flying a metal tube at 10,000 feet minimum, with at least 100 people at any given flight, and if you are the pilot that is involved in a accident, unlike a car or bus accident, you can bet your ass your name is gonna be on national tv no matter what. So you need people with a lot of experience.
So in order to become a pilot in the US you need to pay your way through 5 licenses. After that most airlines have their own guidelines on the minimum hours of flight time needed to even be considered for an application. On average though… you are looking at about 1,500 hours of flight time, which will set you back about 100,000$ and require a heavy time commitment. Most people get their hours by becoming flight instructors, which is not the best paying job averaging between 30,000-60,000., and keep in mind that you cannot technically earn money from flying until you get the 5th license. Luckily if you have made it this far it’s because you love flying and for many it’s a dream job. I can personally attest The sensation of being in control and flying is truly one of a kind. Congrats and welcome to airline industry.
So remember how I just said becoming a pilot is hard, well being one is harder. I’ve already stayed the mental stress involved. Now let’s look at the physical. For most young pilots you are looking at about 3-4 flights a day, while more experienced pilots who do transcontinental flights are looking at about 1-2 flights. It used to be that flying allowed you to not only fly but see the world with many airlines allowing pilots to stay at destinations for a days. Now because of the shortage most pilots are only getting rest because the FAA dictates it. You know how we talk about how teachers get taken advantage of because of their passion. Well pilots are a few steps above that. It’s a decent paying job but salaries aren’t going up, and demand is. Many fly back-to-back days, dealing with very entitled customers, bad weather, logistics, numbers. I could go on and on, anyways…
So with that being said, you would think that the airline industry, which is expecting a boom in air travel demand, even with an impending recession, that they would make it more enticing to become a pilot right…. right?!?! WRONG. Currently many of airlines in the US are working on changing the FAA rules and making it so that you only need 1 pilot in the cabin.. I don’t think I need to state why this is a terrible idea, but if you do… check out Germanwings flight 9525, or Envoy Air 3556
Why do I write this??? Because I hope we can all channel our anger towards the real culprit. Corporations who have once again put profits over employees. When your pilot clocks out it’s not because the employees don’t care about you ( though I’m not gonna say that’s not true either) but rather for your safety. Anyways I ran out of shit to say. I may edit if I feel inspired later on.. cause I could go on with how the A321XLR is gonna revolutionize air travel and not in a good way, but I feel I have said enough for now.
TL:DR; Cuss out the corp, not the employees