3 ms·

Comes down to a few things. First, money. Second, location. Third, skill. The Middle East doesn't have nearly the pool of pilots to start with compared to Nort

Comes down to a few things. First, money. Second, location. Third, skill. The Middle East doesn't have nearly the pool of pilots to start with compared to North America, and even NA is suffering from an extreme shortage of pilots. (Wonder why the airlines no longer fly to your small town? Probably because of a shortage of pilots)

ecshafer 5y ago
Is there actually a pilot shortage, or is there a pay shortage? Most of the people I know who wanted to be pilots bounced off of the extremely low salary for a very long time. Unless someone does military and gets a lot of hours, and even then not always, they are stuck paying for their own license then making a bit above minimum wage flying between cleveland to nashville or something like that. If the airlines paid more money I think the shortage would probably disappear quickly.
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  Pilots for large airlines are paid very well (100k-200k+). The training is expensive and time-consuming, but not that expensive or that time-consuming, if we compare to e.g. medicine or science. There is a low-paid and debt-heavy portion of the career. However, Medical students aren't paid and even the lowest-paid pilot is making more than the average phd candidate.
  - raverbashing 5y ago
    The fact that medical students have it hard doesn't justify it being bad for the pilots. Also it's probably easier to get student loans for medicine than it is for piloting. Maybe the regional carriers should pay more and have better conditions but funny how they describe it as a "pilot shortage". It's just supply and demand.
  - nopzor 5y ago
    new commercial pilots who are flying small airplanes for large airlines in the usa (eg “united express” pilots) barely crack 50k usd salary. and this is after big pay rises the last year.
- labcomputer 5y ago
  Some of both: An early-career pay shortage leads to an actual shortage of experienced pilots to fly big jets. You can, of course, easily solve the problem by raising wages for regional jet pilots, but it takes a few years for the excess pilots to propagate to the major carriers.

ecshafer 5y ago

Is there actually a pilot shortage, or is there a pay shortage? Most of the people I know who wanted to be pilots bounced off of the extremely low salary for a very long time. Unless someone does military and gets a lot of hours, and even then not always, they are stuck paying for their own license then making a bit above minimum wage flying between cleveland to nashville or something like that. If the airlines paid more money I think the shortage would probably disappear quickly.

throwawaygh 5y ago
Pilots for large airlines are paid very well (100k-200k+). The training is expensive and time-consuming, but not that expensive or that time-consuming, if we compare to e.g. medicine or science. There is a low-paid and debt-heavy portion of the career. However, Medical students aren't paid and even the lowest-paid pilot is making more than the average phd candidate.
- raverbashing 5y ago
  The fact that medical students have it hard doesn't justify it being bad for the pilots. Also it's probably easier to get student loans for medicine than it is for piloting. Maybe the regional carriers should pay more and have better conditions but funny how they describe it as a "pilot shortage". It's just supply and demand.
- nopzor 5y ago
  new commercial pilots who are flying small airplanes for large airlines in the usa (eg “united express” pilots) barely crack 50k usd salary. and this is after big pay rises the last year.
labcomputer 5y ago
Some of both: An early-career pay shortage leads to an actual shortage of experienced pilots to fly big jets. You can, of course, easily solve the problem by raising wages for regional jet pilots, but it takes a few years for the excess pilots to propagate to the major carriers.