The pilot shortage problem is now

Air travel continues to show its resilience to external shocks and continues to grow inexorably. The sector has grown around 60% over the past ten years and doubled in size since the start of the decade. Passenger traffic grew 6.3% year-on-year in 2016, continuing a trend of growth above the long term average of 5.5%. While an expected rise in the cost of jet fuel could slightly dampen growth rates in the coming years, there is a general belief that they will not reach the heights seen in 2008 and between 2011 and 2012.
The industry is showing its resilience to slow economic growth by substantially outperforming global GDP, demonstrating the importance of the industry and global connectivity and this will drive further growth across the next two decades. Airbus predicts global annual air traffic growth of 4.4% over the next 20 years, including a 4.9% annual rate across the first decade and 4.1% across the second. Boeing is more positive with an outlook for 4.7% growth rate between now and 2036.
But challenges are mounting as skilled human resources promise to become a serious constraint on growth.
The new aircraft requirement numbers are phenomenal. Airbus projects demand for 34,170 additional 100 seat plus aircraft in the 20 year window, while Boeing puts that number at 40,110, including around 2400 regional jets. A proportion of this total will be to replace the existing inservice fleet, but Airbus says around 21,230, and Boeing forecasts approximately 23,470 aircraft, will be purely to support market growth. That is over 1000 additional aircraft p/a.
The big question is who will crew and maintain these aircraft and where are they going to fly? With pilot numbers already reaching saturation point, it may be difficult to find the additional 500,000+ new pilots that will be required to fly the new equipment. The shortage of trained staff is not a new issue, but it is increasingly becoming a problem.

Airbus forecast of global air markets

Source: Airbus GMF 2107

In Europe, Norwegian, one of the industry's fastest expanding carriers, has described crewing issues as a "fundamental problem" for the business and the airline group has already had to cancel flights at peak times in summer 2017 due to lack of human resources.
Perhaps more worryingly, across the Atlantic in the US, Horizon Air has introduced a cut of almost 7% to its future schedules due to a lack of pilots to operate the services. This followed the forced cancellation of 318 flights in Jun-2017.
The Horizon Air example highlights a serious pipeline issue. Traditionally pilots have used regional operators as stepping stones to build hours to secure employment with larger mainline operators. The airline says an ongoing pilot shortage, coupled with the airline's unprecedented growth as it has added aircraft, "created a perfect storm".
"June will go down as our 'bump in the road' - our moment when things got too far off track, and now, we must decide how to recover," Dave Campbell, Horizon Air CEO told employees in an internal communication.
A doubling of the commercial fleet over the next 20 years implies a need for approximately 530,000 new pilots and 550,000 new maintenance engineers. CAE, in its global pilot demand study to highlight the industry's needs over the next ten years, identified a global requirement for 255,000 new airline pilots over the next 10 years to sustain and grow the commercial air transport industry. Rapid fleet expansion and high pilot retirement rates create a further need to develop 180,000 first officers into new airline captains, more than in any previous decade.
These numbers realistically mean that over 50% of the pilots who will fly the world's commercial aircraft in 10 years have not yet even started to train. CAE says this record demand will challenge current pilot recruitment channels and development programmes and in turn, new and innovative pilot career pathways and training systems will be required to meet the industry's crewing needs and ever-evolving safety standards.
In 2016, approximately 20,000 pilots entered the airline profession around the world from either airline-focused flight training academies, universities, military and business aviation or small regional flight clubs and schools. This number is around the same as in 2012, despite the industry having grown from 3 billion to 3.8 billion passengers in that five year period.
In the immediate future, airlines in regions of rapid growth face limited access to experienced pilots in their markets. To address this challenge, they generally focus on accelerating the development of junior first officers, a lengthy process, and on hiring experienced first officers and captains from more mature markets.

Average number of pilots per aircraft*

Source: CAE
Note: *Based on CAE analysis

Almost 10% of airline pilots today in Asia Pacific are expatriates. In some instances, airlines in the Middle East source over half of their pilots from outside their region.
CAE forecasts the industry will need 255,000 new airline pilots over the next 10 years, for a total of 440,000 active pilots by 2027 - 60% for fleet growth and 40% to offset retirement and attrition. In addition, 180,000 first officers will need to be promoted to captain, over half of which will be to replace retiring captains. Effectively, airlines and their training partners will need to produce an average of 70 new type-rated pilots per day globally to match the record high aircraft delivery rate and account for pilot attrition.