<p>There is no doubting the fact that 2020 was one of the toughest years ever for the aerospace and aviation industries. Cancelled flights, job furloughs and losses, carriers ceasing trading completely despite many governments doing their best to help – it was all there.</p>
<p>Matt Chupp, admissions recruitment manager at Republic Airways’ training subsidiary LIFT Academy, notes that, after record profits in 2019, many airlines saw their daily operations fall well below 20% of their normal, planned schedules. “We had the first decline in growth in the industry in 21 years. Furloughs or reduced time happened at every airline, causing a lot of people to rethink their careers in aviation,” he remarks.</p>
<p><img alt="Plane in the Sunset" src="/getasset/86c7035b-a4c1-4d2e-9962-a299b152ac79/" /></p>
<p>Looking into 2021, Chupp believes the future still looks bright for those seeking a career in aviation, and highlights four reasons why LIFT believes this could be a great year to consider starting or finishing flight training.</p>
<p>“First there’s seniority,” he begins. “It’s no secret that those with the most longevity with an airline receive the benefit of bidding their schedule first. What some people don’t consider when airlines aren’t hiring is that fewer candidates in the pipeline can lead to faster upgrade times. Your hire date always matters, and the month you are hired can be the difference between when you transition from a first officer to a captain and when/if you choose to join a major carrier. Time off and selecting the schedule you want is all impacted on your hire date as well.”</p>
<p>Salary is the second consideration. “Many people choose aviation as a lifelong career and expect to fly for the airlines until they reach the mandatory retirement age, which in the USA is 65. Starting your flight training soon will allow you to be ready to fly when hiring resumes, enabling you to earn more money during your career. Delaying could risk entering a competitive job market with less mobility to upgrade, costing thousands during your career,” Chupp advises.</p>
<p>Next comes the topic of retirements. “<a href="https://www.eaatogether.org/live/forums/6175250293001">Kit Darby</a>, an aviation consultant and pilot, has a wealth of information regarding hiring forecasts for the next several decades. Despite the current airline environment, he is still predicting near-term hiring opportunities based on mandatory retirements. And he isn’t alone. Charles Wright, another pilot and contributor to AOPA, believes that the airline industry ‘will turn around because it has to’,” he says.</p>
<p><img alt="Chart" src="/getasset/98e5d405-ad79-47bd-80e2-6bfa8b6429dc/" /></p>
<p>Finally, Chupp turns to the long-discussed shortage of flight crew. “Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the airline industry was facing a talent shortage. It was estimated that between 550,000 and 637,000 pilots would be needed by 2036, according to research at Boeing. The shortage was caused by the cost of training, low pay for decades at the regional level, and a lack of interest in pursuing the career,” he reports.</p>
<p>“Since the pandemic hit last spring, the hiring needs at airlines has only been predicted to get worse. In October 2020, Boeing released its updated <em>Pilot and Technician Outlook Report</em>, which forecast a need for 763,000 pilots over the next 20 years. So while hiring today may be slim, there will be significant hiring needs soon,” Chupp observes. “From start to finish, it takes zero-time pilots 30-42 months to be ready for hire at the airlines, so taking advantage of time now is important to get ahead of the looming talent gap.</p>
<p>“While 2021 may not see a significant increase in recruiting, aviation jobs are on the horizon. At LIFT, we are working on continuing to enrol students as we prepare for hiring needs at Republic Airways. We don’t know when hiring will resume to 2019 levels, but as more research and vaccinations roll out, we are confident that the need for pilots will increase significantly,” he predicts, going on to declare: “Starting a career in aviation this year will have one of the highest ROIs [return on investment] over your lifetime.”</p>
<p>Staying with training organisations, Anthony Petteford has led <em>ab initio</em> pilot training ATOs globally for the past 25 years and is currently managing director of UK-based VA Airline Training. For him, the primary drivers that underpin future new pilot demand and recruitment are the continued pilot retirements from the ‘baby boom’ generation and the absolute fleet growth globally.</p>
<p>“The driver that has obviously continued unabated during 2021 is pilot ageing/retirements and, significantly, this driver has been exacerbated during the pandemic,” he comments. “Airlines may have ‘lost’ more of their senior pilots from the senior fleets (for example, four-engine types) during the process of absolute crew rationalisation during the pandemic.</p>
<p>“Pilots who were already close to retirement age have now proactively chosen not to return to flying duties (even if invited to do so) given the received burden of recurrent training for a relatively short remaining period before reaching retirement age. Of interest is that a material number of these senior pilots also worked in parallel with airline flying roles to support the <em>ab initio</em> cadet pilot training industry and these pilots now become more available to transfer their considerable skills and experience to the new aspirant cadet airline pilot. This has certainly helped resolve what was becoming a serious instructor experience/skills shortage pre-Covid,” he suggests.</p>
<p><img alt="airBaltic A220" src="/getasset/0e34dc33-2e71-47e1-997d-3f176147caea/" /></p>
<p>“In terms of the resumption of cadet hiring in 2021, we are already seeing a resumption of assessment activities for our Ryanair mentored cadets whose next training module is type rating training. This early activity is the airline creating a ‘primed’ pool of well-prepared cadets in readiness for the anticipated ramping-up of the flying schedule in the summers of 2021 and 2022,” Petteford adds.</p>
<p>“The general advice I would give to cadet pilots is to always expect – even in the best of times – a six-month wait as standard from <em>ab initio</em> training completion into type/rating training and airline employment,” he continues. “Covid has probably doubled that wait time in general and one would therefore expect cadet hiring to gather greater cadence in 2022, but with a few exceptions such as Ryanair. In fact, we expect the earlier green shoots of recovery to be with low-cost carriers as opposed to the legacy carriers.”</p>
<p>A carrier building a strong reputation in recent years is airBaltic, which has been streamlining – and growing – its fleet to be one of only Airbus A220-300s. Even here though, the pandemic made its mark.</p>
<p>“In the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, airBaltic, like many other carriers, was forced to decrease its operations and workforce,” reports the airline’s chief operating officer Pauls Calitis, himself a pilot. “We provided terminated employees with various social benefits and a rehiring guarantee. Since that time, the company has rehired more than 50 employees.</p>
<p>“Additionally, we have been performing select recruitment activities and will continue to also rehire former employees. The company’s revised business plan does not predict a full return to previous traffic volumes in 2021, therefore the recruitment activity will continue to be lower,” Calitis confirms.</p>
<p>In the world of engineering, Lufthansa Technik is one of the world’s largest MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) operations. Here too though, there have been sizeable cutbacks. According to the company’s human resources department, the outlook for recruitment in its sector is not encouraging. “Due to the crisis and reduced flight operations worldwide over the next few years, the demand for aircraft technicians will be lower than in the recent years,” it states. “Retirements will reduce the current overcapacity in manpower, but not as much as needed. Therefore, in our industry, recruiting will be significantly reduced in 2021. For Lufthansa Technik, we are not planning any specific recruiting campaigns for this year.”</p>
<p>In the defence sector, Marissa Holdorf, vice-president human resources – defence & security with CAE, reports that the worldwide furloughs and reductions in workforce within civil aviation have temporarily improved the outlook for recruitment in defence aviation in 2021.</p>
<p>“Here at CAE, we have seen an increase in the number of applicants and available candidates across the majority of our global programmes where we have been recruiting instructors, test pilots and other aviation-related personnel. However, as civil travel increases and the civil aviation market returns to pre-Covid levels over the next couple of years, we fully expect to see a decrease in pilot supply again and a more competitive market for the highly-skilled pilots and instructors who are required in both the military and civil aviation sectors,” Holdorf admits.</p>
<p><img alt="CAE" src="/getasset/5fa5b1ad-8af8-4e7b-ae52-1998063c12b9/" /></p>
<p>“Away from flying, the demand for talent in engineering, space and missile defence, cyber support, as well as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) across the defence sector, has remained high despite Covid-19. The demand for cleared talent – those professionals with high-level security clearances – remains highly competitive and has even increased during the pandemic due to global tensions,” she says.</p>
<p>“In addition, talent coming from a high-tech background will be even more important as CAE and other aerospace and defence companies seek out more experienced staff in artificial intelligence, machine learning, systems infrastructure (IT/engineering) and big data analytics,” Holdorf adds. “These areas are becoming increasingly important along with our traditional needs in software engineering, systems engineering, cybersecurity and programme deployment.”</p>
<p>Any outlook on aviation recruitment would not be complete without an assessment from the front line, the specialist agencies. Brookfield Aviation has more than 25 years’ experience in the field. So its co-founder and chief executive David George is well qualified to assess the landscape.</p>
<p>“The pilot job market in 2021 will certainly be different than pre-Covid,” he begins. “Firstly, airlines around the world are very aware of the abundance of unemployed pilots and will take advantage of this situation to hire at very cheap rates.</p>
<p>“This is already happening. Contract rates for Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 pilots, for example, are at best 50% of what they were pre-Covid. There is a lot of slack to take up – we are talking of thousands of pilots now without work and the prospects of a recovery for the industry, although better than for some time, are still not so strong.</p>
<p><img alt="Norwegian Crew" src="/getasset/8aa92d7d-7ad1-49a9-922a-bbbb44a3f917/" /></p>
<p>“Another issue is currency,” notes George. “So many pilots haven’t flown since last March and require expensive recurrent training. For now, there are enough current pilots to fill the few available jobs and often if a pilot needs to be current to be in with a chance of employment, they will need to pay for it themself.</p>
<p>“It is very surprising that a lot of pilots still haven’t accepted the reality of the present situation and it seems they would prefer to stay unemployed than to compromise on their remuneration or travel to another part of the world to take a job – even in the short term,” he observes. “We see others applying to our jobs with expired passports, CVs and logbooks not up to date and missing documentation. Airlines don’t need to look at these pilots because there are many more to choose from.</p>
<p>“For the next year, the pilots who are going to be successful in getting jobs will need to do more than demonstrate they can fly an aircraft competently, because airlines are looking more closely at personal attributes and soft skills. Brookfield’s ‘Adjust with Purpose’ coaching programme specifically addresses these issues for pilots.</p>
<p>“There will be more jobs for pilots, but they need to recognise that it is – and will be for some time – a buyer’s market. Thus, the best strategy for returning to work is to be flexible regarding location, terms and conditions, and be prepared to invest in recurrent training and personal coaching. The market will eventually recover, but there is no room for complacency,” George concludes.</p>
<p>Matt Chupp, admissions recruitment manager at Republic Airways’ training subsidiary LIFT Academy, notes that, after record profits in 2019, many airlines saw their daily operations fall well below 20% of their normal, planned schedules. “We had the first decline in growth in the industry in 21 years. Furloughs or reduced time happened at every airline, causing a lot of people to rethink their careers in aviation,” he remarks.</p>
<p><img alt="Plane in the Sunset" src="/getasset/86c7035b-a4c1-4d2e-9962-a299b152ac79/" /></p>
<p>Looking into 2021, Chupp believes the future still looks bright for those seeking a career in aviation, and highlights four reasons why LIFT believes this could be a great year to consider starting or finishing flight training.</p>
<p>“First there’s seniority,” he begins. “It’s no secret that those with the most longevity with an airline receive the benefit of bidding their schedule first. What some people don’t consider when airlines aren’t hiring is that fewer candidates in the pipeline can lead to faster upgrade times. Your hire date always matters, and the month you are hired can be the difference between when you transition from a first officer to a captain and when/if you choose to join a major carrier. Time off and selecting the schedule you want is all impacted on your hire date as well.”</p>
<p>Salary is the second consideration. “Many people choose aviation as a lifelong career and expect to fly for the airlines until they reach the mandatory retirement age, which in the USA is 65. Starting your flight training soon will allow you to be ready to fly when hiring resumes, enabling you to earn more money during your career. Delaying could risk entering a competitive job market with less mobility to upgrade, costing thousands during your career,” Chupp advises.</p>
<p>Next comes the topic of retirements. “<a href="https://www.eaatogether.org/live/forums/6175250293001">Kit Darby</a>, an aviation consultant and pilot, has a wealth of information regarding hiring forecasts for the next several decades. Despite the current airline environment, he is still predicting near-term hiring opportunities based on mandatory retirements. And he isn’t alone. Charles Wright, another pilot and contributor to AOPA, believes that the airline industry ‘will turn around because it has to’,” he says.</p>
<p><img alt="Chart" src="/getasset/98e5d405-ad79-47bd-80e2-6bfa8b6429dc/" /></p>
<p>Finally, Chupp turns to the long-discussed shortage of flight crew. “Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the airline industry was facing a talent shortage. It was estimated that between 550,000 and 637,000 pilots would be needed by 2036, according to research at Boeing. The shortage was caused by the cost of training, low pay for decades at the regional level, and a lack of interest in pursuing the career,” he reports.</p>
<p>“Since the pandemic hit last spring, the hiring needs at airlines has only been predicted to get worse. In October 2020, Boeing released its updated <em>Pilot and Technician Outlook Report</em>, which forecast a need for 763,000 pilots over the next 20 years. So while hiring today may be slim, there will be significant hiring needs soon,” Chupp observes. “From start to finish, it takes zero-time pilots 30-42 months to be ready for hire at the airlines, so taking advantage of time now is important to get ahead of the looming talent gap.</p>
<p>“While 2021 may not see a significant increase in recruiting, aviation jobs are on the horizon. At LIFT, we are working on continuing to enrol students as we prepare for hiring needs at Republic Airways. We don’t know when hiring will resume to 2019 levels, but as more research and vaccinations roll out, we are confident that the need for pilots will increase significantly,” he predicts, going on to declare: “Starting a career in aviation this year will have one of the highest ROIs [return on investment] over your lifetime.”</p>
<p>Staying with training organisations, Anthony Petteford has led <em>ab initio</em> pilot training ATOs globally for the past 25 years and is currently managing director of UK-based VA Airline Training. For him, the primary drivers that underpin future new pilot demand and recruitment are the continued pilot retirements from the ‘baby boom’ generation and the absolute fleet growth globally.</p>
<p>“The driver that has obviously continued unabated during 2021 is pilot ageing/retirements and, significantly, this driver has been exacerbated during the pandemic,” he comments. “Airlines may have ‘lost’ more of their senior pilots from the senior fleets (for example, four-engine types) during the process of absolute crew rationalisation during the pandemic.</p>
<p>“Pilots who were already close to retirement age have now proactively chosen not to return to flying duties (even if invited to do so) given the received burden of recurrent training for a relatively short remaining period before reaching retirement age. Of interest is that a material number of these senior pilots also worked in parallel with airline flying roles to support the <em>ab initio</em> cadet pilot training industry and these pilots now become more available to transfer their considerable skills and experience to the new aspirant cadet airline pilot. This has certainly helped resolve what was becoming a serious instructor experience/skills shortage pre-Covid,” he suggests.</p>
<p><img alt="airBaltic A220" src="/getasset/0e34dc33-2e71-47e1-997d-3f176147caea/" /></p>
<p>“In terms of the resumption of cadet hiring in 2021, we are already seeing a resumption of assessment activities for our Ryanair mentored cadets whose next training module is type rating training. This early activity is the airline creating a ‘primed’ pool of well-prepared cadets in readiness for the anticipated ramping-up of the flying schedule in the summers of 2021 and 2022,” Petteford adds.</p>
<p>“The general advice I would give to cadet pilots is to always expect – even in the best of times – a six-month wait as standard from <em>ab initio</em> training completion into type/rating training and airline employment,” he continues. “Covid has probably doubled that wait time in general and one would therefore expect cadet hiring to gather greater cadence in 2022, but with a few exceptions such as Ryanair. In fact, we expect the earlier green shoots of recovery to be with low-cost carriers as opposed to the legacy carriers.”</p>
<p>A carrier building a strong reputation in recent years is airBaltic, which has been streamlining – and growing – its fleet to be one of only Airbus A220-300s. Even here though, the pandemic made its mark.</p>
<p>“In the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, airBaltic, like many other carriers, was forced to decrease its operations and workforce,” reports the airline’s chief operating officer Pauls Calitis, himself a pilot. “We provided terminated employees with various social benefits and a rehiring guarantee. Since that time, the company has rehired more than 50 employees.</p>
<p>“Additionally, we have been performing select recruitment activities and will continue to also rehire former employees. The company’s revised business plan does not predict a full return to previous traffic volumes in 2021, therefore the recruitment activity will continue to be lower,” Calitis confirms.</p>
<p>In the world of engineering, Lufthansa Technik is one of the world’s largest MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) operations. Here too though, there have been sizeable cutbacks. According to the company’s human resources department, the outlook for recruitment in its sector is not encouraging. “Due to the crisis and reduced flight operations worldwide over the next few years, the demand for aircraft technicians will be lower than in the recent years,” it states. “Retirements will reduce the current overcapacity in manpower, but not as much as needed. Therefore, in our industry, recruiting will be significantly reduced in 2021. For Lufthansa Technik, we are not planning any specific recruiting campaigns for this year.”</p>
<p>In the defence sector, Marissa Holdorf, vice-president human resources – defence & security with CAE, reports that the worldwide furloughs and reductions in workforce within civil aviation have temporarily improved the outlook for recruitment in defence aviation in 2021.</p>
<p>“Here at CAE, we have seen an increase in the number of applicants and available candidates across the majority of our global programmes where we have been recruiting instructors, test pilots and other aviation-related personnel. However, as civil travel increases and the civil aviation market returns to pre-Covid levels over the next couple of years, we fully expect to see a decrease in pilot supply again and a more competitive market for the highly-skilled pilots and instructors who are required in both the military and civil aviation sectors,” Holdorf admits.</p>
<p><img alt="CAE" src="/getasset/5fa5b1ad-8af8-4e7b-ae52-1998063c12b9/" /></p>
<p>“Away from flying, the demand for talent in engineering, space and missile defence, cyber support, as well as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) across the defence sector, has remained high despite Covid-19. The demand for cleared talent – those professionals with high-level security clearances – remains highly competitive and has even increased during the pandemic due to global tensions,” she says.</p>
<p>“In addition, talent coming from a high-tech background will be even more important as CAE and other aerospace and defence companies seek out more experienced staff in artificial intelligence, machine learning, systems infrastructure (IT/engineering) and big data analytics,” Holdorf adds. “These areas are becoming increasingly important along with our traditional needs in software engineering, systems engineering, cybersecurity and programme deployment.”</p>
<p>Any outlook on aviation recruitment would not be complete without an assessment from the front line, the specialist agencies. Brookfield Aviation has more than 25 years’ experience in the field. So its co-founder and chief executive David George is well qualified to assess the landscape.</p>
<p>“The pilot job market in 2021 will certainly be different than pre-Covid,” he begins. “Firstly, airlines around the world are very aware of the abundance of unemployed pilots and will take advantage of this situation to hire at very cheap rates.</p>
<p>“This is already happening. Contract rates for Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 pilots, for example, are at best 50% of what they were pre-Covid. There is a lot of slack to take up – we are talking of thousands of pilots now without work and the prospects of a recovery for the industry, although better than for some time, are still not so strong.</p>
<p><img alt="Norwegian Crew" src="/getasset/8aa92d7d-7ad1-49a9-922a-bbbb44a3f917/" /></p>
<p>“Another issue is currency,” notes George. “So many pilots haven’t flown since last March and require expensive recurrent training. For now, there are enough current pilots to fill the few available jobs and often if a pilot needs to be current to be in with a chance of employment, they will need to pay for it themself.</p>
<p>“It is very surprising that a lot of pilots still haven’t accepted the reality of the present situation and it seems they would prefer to stay unemployed than to compromise on their remuneration or travel to another part of the world to take a job – even in the short term,” he observes. “We see others applying to our jobs with expired passports, CVs and logbooks not up to date and missing documentation. Airlines don’t need to look at these pilots because there are many more to choose from.</p>
<p>“For the next year, the pilots who are going to be successful in getting jobs will need to do more than demonstrate they can fly an aircraft competently, because airlines are looking more closely at personal attributes and soft skills. Brookfield’s ‘Adjust with Purpose’ coaching programme specifically addresses these issues for pilots.</p>
<p>“There will be more jobs for pilots, but they need to recognise that it is – and will be for some time – a buyer’s market. Thus, the best strategy for returning to work is to be flexible regarding location, terms and conditions, and be prepared to invest in recurrent training and personal coaching. The market will eventually recover, but there is no room for complacency,” George concludes.</p>