Supply and demand

Pilot shortages remain in short supply

Standing at the supermarket checkout, the magazines on the rack announce their less-than-newsworthy headlines. Someone is cheating on someone, someone is caught on camera and somebody else has cellulite. It’s all very earth shattering, although I’ll wager that if you give it a few weeks the same headlines will resurface with just the names changed to convict the innocent – but it apparently sells.

Unfortunately aviation can also fall victim to re-circulation. Of late, it has been the catch-cry of ‘pilot shortage’. And this time some fairly reputable sources have jumped on the bandwagon. Often when projected airliner sales over the next decade or two are announced, the question is asked again: “Who will fly all of these aeroplanes?” Sometimes one wonders who is behind the stories. Is it the manufacturers highlighting their numbers, the training institutions promoting their wares or media outlets filling blank pages? Either way, for all of the desperate pleas for pilots over recent decades, a true global shortage has never really surfaced. There were times when on paper it potentially threatened to happen in Australia, but 9/11, SARS and the Ansett collapse led to a glut rather than a famine.