Will There Be A Global Pilot Shortage?

With air travel demand expected to more than double during the next 20 years, are the powers-that-be of the global civil aviation industry doing their part to avert this looming problem?

By: Ringo Bones

During the 2019 Paris Air Show, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenberg stated that a growing shortage of pilots represented “one of the biggest challenges” facing the airline industry. In February 10, 2020 the BBC ran a news story on the ever increasing demand for air travel is growing so rapidly that by the year 2038 that 804,000 new pilots are expected to be needed. The biggest need will be in the Asia-Pacific region where a projected “improving economy” of Mainland China will result in more people booking flights compared to recent years. More people in the United States will be expected to fly during the next two decades, but unfortunately, the U.S. will be experiencing a pilot shortage in 2020 as experienced pilots are reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65. But how do we solve the problem of pilot shortage during the next 20 years?

In the Philippines, college-age students have opted to pursue medical courses – mostly as nurses to work in the United States – because they can earn money to pay their college debt much sooner if they’d pursue a career on civil aviation. Maybe Boeing and Airbus should offer scholarships to worthy but financially impoverished potential pilots here in the Asia-Pacific region?

Is Civil Aviation Still Profitable?

With the Eurofighter Typhoon selling like hotcakes during the 2009 Dubai Air Show, is the civilian side of the aviation industry still profitable?


By: Ringo Bones


Maybe it was Michael Keith, managing director of BAE Systems’ Middle East branch, pointing out that military aviation industry as recession proof due to their Eurofighter Typhoon selling like hotcakes during the 2009 Dubai Air Show has got me thinking whether the civil aviation industry is still profitable. After all, given the long delays of the rollout of the Airbus A380 Super Jumbo and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, you could be forgiven for doubting the long-term profitability of civil aviation. But is the civil aviation business really that badly affected by the current global economic downturn?

The private jet / executive jet business has been negatively hit – both financially and ethically – not only by the global economic downturn. But also of the environmentally “unethical behavior” of the executives of America’s Big Four carmakers who used their private jets to fly to Washington, D.C. back in 2008 in order to ask a financial bailout from Capitol Hill. Thus hurting the image of the private jet / executive jet manufacturing business.

Graeme Deary, executive director of Net Jets has recently been resorted to find “creative” ways to make a profit in the executive jet manufacturing business. Like their company’s timeshare scheme of offering ½, ¼, 1/8, and even 1/16 ownership of their famed executive jets which some fortunate few top company executives can’t do without. Even their latest pay-as-you-go or pay-as-you-fly scheme has had them making their executive jets available to be used as a flying taxi or a jet limousine for rent at prom night just to keep their company afloat. Or maybe just to make it to next year’s Dubai Air Show.

While Andrew Hoy, executive director of Execujet Aviation had to pitch his latest offering to the civil aviation industry much harder during the 2009 Dubai Air Show. Execujet Aviation managed to make – though still in its “vapor ware” stage – a supersonic capable executive jet that costs only 10 to 15% more than its current subsonic contemporaries. Even though this upcoming executive jet could cross the Atlantic in half the time of most current subsonic executive jets, unless enough advance orders are made, a prototype could not ever be built soon due to lack of funds.

The present state of the civil aviation business – whether it is on mass transport wide-bodied jumbo jets or smaller privately owned executive jets – seems to be in the doldrums and some are even teetering on bankruptcy. Not only because of the current global economic downturn or the widespread “pessimism” of our post – 9 / 11 world, but also of growing environmental concerns. If you are growing tired over the media frenzy over excess carbon dioxide produced by air travel. Wait until you hear the media mull over excessive nitric oxide emissions of widespread civilian supersonic air travel busting a hole in our ozone layer.

Can the Boeing 787 Dreamliner Make Civil Aviation

Given that the recent 2009 Dubai Air Show had proved that the Eurofighter Typhoon as the fastest selling military aviation gear around, can the Boeing 787 Dreamliner make civil aviation profitable again?


By: Ringo Bones


Boeing builds bombers, a slogan that straddled both World War II and the Cold War. But in our post- 9 / 11 world, it seems like huge strategic bomber fleets are fast becoming the technological dinosaurs of the aviation world, despite of their technological sophistication. And while the recent 2009 Dubai Air Show had surprised everyone with the rather brisk sales of the Eurofighter Typhoon – probably sold with the enhanced ground attack capability upgrade as a value-for-money weapons system to neutralize “newfangled” 21st Century threats like the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Although one needs not to fly faster than 400 mph when “neutralizing” threats like Taliban and Al Qaeda. Which makes the Eurofighter Typhoon in danger of being superseded by an OV-10A Bronco type counter-insurgency plane if ever an aviation manufacturing firm successfully manages to retrofit a 1.8 metric ton GAU-8 AVENGER into one. Given that our world has drastically changed since the September 11, 2009 terror attacks on the World Trade Center Towers, is there a need for a paradigm shift in the aviation industry in order to make civil aviation profitable again?

Enter the much-awaited Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which finally made its maiden flight in December 14, 2009 after two years of delays due to machinists’ strikes over wage disputes. Touted to be 20% more fuel-efficient with 15% less maintenance costs due to the extensive use of advanced aerospace grade composites in the fuselage and wings. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is indeed civil aviation’s latest technological tour de force that has a much longer range while burning the same amount of fuel than it’s similarly-sized aluminum alloy-based predecessors. Thus keeping ticket prices lower in comparison to inflation trends.

According to the top brass at Boeing’s main headquarters in Seattle, Washington, the 787 Dreamliner was primarily designed to service the intermediate range routes that are deemed to uneconomic for the much larger Airbus A380 Super Jumbo. With its British made Rolls Royce jet engines, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner is probably the last best hope for Boeing to get out of the company’s economic slump brought about by last year’s global recession. Though the maiden flight of the 787 Dreamliner didn’t make as much fanfare as the launch of the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet back in 1969, which was then the largest plane in the world. Sporting four Pratt & Whitney turbofan jet engines with a large bypass ratio deemed state of the art 40 years ago, the 747 Jumbo Jet did revolutionized civil air travel to its familiar high-capacity subsonic shape of today. Boeing’s top executives still hopes that the 787 Dreamliner is the civil aviation product that could make the firm profitable again.