<p><img alt="Icelandair Pilot Shortage" src="/getasset/ca036266-24b9-4047-8c68-8df4f520f726/" /></p>
<p>Its population is just over 330,000 – less than Aurora, Colorado – but, as we have seen from football and culture generally, Iceland’s impact on the world is out of proportion to its size.</p>
<p>So it is with aviation. The country is home to two major airlines: fast-growing, low-cost start-up Wow Air, and flag-carrier Icelandair, both of which exploit Iceland’s mid-Atlantic location to offer services to cities in Europe and North America and beyond, using Keflavik as a hub. Iceland’s booming tourist industry also helps feed their businesses.</p>
<p>Icelandair has now become the latest airline to respond to the pilot shortage by launching its own cadet programme, in association with L3 Commercial Training Solutions. The carrier plans to recruit 60 pilots over the next three years, with training starting in the last quarter of 2018. It will underwrite 100% of the course costs for successful applicants.</p>
<p>There is an open day in Reykjavic on 31 August, but for any aspiring aviators, here’s the rub: the programme is only open to fluent Icelandic speakers, who also must of course speak English fluently. Given that few non-Icelanders have even mastered the old Nordic tongue, that narrows the pool of potential applicants down quite a bit.</p>
<p>Its population is just over 330,000 – less than Aurora, Colorado – but, as we have seen from football and culture generally, Iceland’s impact on the world is out of proportion to its size.</p>
<p>So it is with aviation. The country is home to two major airlines: fast-growing, low-cost start-up Wow Air, and flag-carrier Icelandair, both of which exploit Iceland’s mid-Atlantic location to offer services to cities in Europe and North America and beyond, using Keflavik as a hub. Iceland’s booming tourist industry also helps feed their businesses.</p>
<p>Icelandair has now become the latest airline to respond to the pilot shortage by launching its own cadet programme, in association with L3 Commercial Training Solutions. The carrier plans to recruit 60 pilots over the next three years, with training starting in the last quarter of 2018. It will underwrite 100% of the course costs for successful applicants.</p>
<p>There is an open day in Reykjavic on 31 August, but for any aspiring aviators, here’s the rub: the programme is only open to fluent Icelandic speakers, who also must of course speak English fluently. Given that few non-Icelanders have even mastered the old Nordic tongue, that narrows the pool of potential applicants down quite a bit.</p>