Airlines Manpower Shortages Revisited

Ever since the airline industry started the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the news were full of flight cancellations, primarily due to the shortage of crew especially in the USA. The crew manpower shortage is an old issue. It started around 2011. This issue was discussed on this blog in June 2011 The New Challenges ... Manpower and Training and in September 2014 The Pilot Shortage Myth, Maybe Not. 

In 2014 the pilot shortage was viewed by ALPA at the time as a "Pay Shortage" and not an actual manpower shortage. The thinking, at the time, was that the industry will suffer in 10 to 15 years of a flight crew and technician shortage in the hundred thousands based on airline expansion plans. 

Fast forward to 2020 and the COVID-19 Pandemic with strict global lockdowns and massive disruptions to life as we knew it. Airlines furloughed, laid off staff and parked or returned aircraft to reduce losses.  As the world learned to cope with the pandemic and airline operations started again airlines faced two issues:   

1. Get aircraft operational (out of parking or storage); and
2. Get staff (crews, technicians and ground) back to man the operation. 

During the Dubai Air Show we all felt the energy of the industry coming back together and looking optimistically to the future; to the much coveted expansion and well being. To achieve this, airlines 

will need to expand and will probably start feeling the pain of flight crew and technician shortages across the globe around 2025 onwards. Training initiatives and programs need to be launched to encourage younger generations to engage with aviation.

Basically, we are back to where we were in 2014. 

It is a reset, hopefully we all have learned the lesson and will work diligently to avert it.

The Pilot Shortage Myth, Maybe Not

Captain Lee Moak, President of ALPA, International in an Opinion titled The Pilot Shortage Myth  in the September 8, 2014 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology argued that it is not a pilot shortage but a pay shortage. I agree with Captain Moak, that entry level pay for pilots at the lowest paying US airlines especially regionals is at the poverty level and this is driving young people from the profession among other factors. Airline management sometimes use the pilot shortage as an argument to roll back safety regulations (Pilot Fatigue and FO qualification and training rules) or cancel flights and curtail services.

I do not share the view that the shortage is a myth. It may be a myth today but it will be a reality in 15 to 20 years. US carriers are rolling over their older fleets and the capacity increases are derived more from larger aircraft than from fleet expansion, but that is now eventually the fleet will have to increase and so will pilot demand. The rapid expansion of airline fleets in Asia Pacific, MENA and Latin America, add to it the eventual recovery of European airlines and the industry will be looking at a global shortage.

As the fleet ages, so do pilots, in reality pilots aged 45 to 50 years now would be retired by then. Investment in human capital especially pilots, engineers and technicians is no longer a luxury it is a necessity for the survival of the industry. This has been a challenge a few years back (The New Challenges... Manpower and Training Oussama's Take 20 June 2011), still is and will be for a long time.