Shortage of Pilot in Europe – July 2022 Posted by the Telegraph

Airlines in Europe must hire 6,000 pilots a year for the next two decades as demand for jetting off abroad rebounds strongly, Boeing has said.

European carriers will need to hire 122,000 new pilots between now and 2041, the American planemaker said. A similar number is required in both North America and China.

Demand for qualified pilots may struggle to keep up with supply as the world faces a shortage of flight instructors.

“Because the industry already was heading toward a global pilot shortage before the pandemic, many airlines instituted cadet pilot programs to fill their talent pipelines,” Boeing said in a new report looking at aviation staffing levels.

“Operators that paused or cancelled these programs during the pandemic will likely resume their focus on new pilot development. Concurrently, the industry as a whole must address a global shortage of certified flight instructors.”

The warning on staffing levels comes as British Airways pilots demand the airline rips up a salary sacrifice scheme that was agreed during the pandemic as part of a plan to reduce the number of forced redundancies.Pilots union Balpa remains in talks with bosses at the carrier to replace a scheme that reduces pre-pandemic salaries with a deal that incorporates inflationary rises.

The Boeing report also forecast that European carriers would need to hire 207,000 new cabin crew over the next 19 years – the highest staffing requirement of any region.

Airlines have struggled to re-hire cabin crew that were laid off during the pandemic as bookings surge this summer.

EasyJet was forced to remove seats from its aircraft in order to reduce the number of cabin crew required on board, the Telegraph revealed in May, after suffering a shortfall in staff.

British Airways, meanwhile, began offering £1,000 “golden hello” bonuses if cabin crew switched from their current airline to the UK flag carrier.

Ryanair is currently facing upheaval among its on-board teams based in Spain. The Spanish cabin crew union announced on Wednesday that members will strike for four days every week between August 8 and next January.

Union leader Lidia Aransanz said: “As the company has been unable to listen to the workers, we have been forced to call new strike days.”

The unions are demanding 22 days of holiday and two extra months payment per year to comply with Spanish legislation, she added.

A Ryanair spokesman said: “Ryanair has recently reached an agreement with the main Spanish CCOO union on pay, rosters and allowances for its Spanish cabin crew. Recent strikes by USO/SITCPLA have been poorly supported with minimal effect. Ryanair has operated over 45,000 flights to/from Spain over the last 3 months with less than 1% affected by crewing and Ryanair expects minimal (if any) disruption this winter.”

Aviation in Asia is slowly recovering from COVID.   The number of domestic flights in many (actually most) of the Asian countries has returned to 2019 pre-Covid levels, but the number of international flights have not recovered.  

Asia has gone from one of the fastest growing aviation stories to one of the slowest to emerge.  It was only around April of 2022 that the momentum began to turn positive.  Most experts believe that Asian aviation can thrive again in the future, however, as long as the borders of China remain closed, progress will be extremely difficult if not impossible.

The Aviation market in India is recovering and it less dependent on China than the other countries. 

The travel industry believes that travel in Asia will increase during in the future (2023) due to pent up demand.  Australia, Japan, Korea, Singapore and New Zealand will be key destinations in the future.  Delta and United plan to add additional seats to Asia during this year

The aviation market in Asia continues to explode.  Boeing is forecasting 41,000 new aircraft are required between now and 2036.  CAE is forecasting the need of 255,000 new pilots by 2027.

The compensation rates in China are exploding which are influencing the pay rates of other Asian Airlines.  The airlines in the USA have recently increased their pay to stop the exodus of pilots to go fly in Asia.

Until recently, Russia was a good source of airline pilots, especially Captains.  These young Russian Captains could move from a $4,000 USD per month job in Russia to making over $28,000 USD per month in China.  About two years ago, Putin realized he was losing the young pilots and stopped the aviation authority in Russia from certifying pilots’ licenses.  Effectively, this stopped Russian pilots from leaving.  Only the pilots that moved early (2014 through 2016) could stay.

It seems that there is no end to the growth of Aviation in China.