Your Aviation Career in 2020

Our present stall is cited by general consensus, as anything from 12-24 months in duration. At which time, we might be in a growth zone once more and growth in aviation equals increased recruitment. 

I started this article to extrapolate what we currently have or know into career projections in our industry. But I’m starting with a whole lot of uncertainty, so I took to some truisms of the past as reassurance that this too shall pass; 

• Aviation has always rebounded, and it will again. 
• People will continue to travel. 
• Change is a constant, in response we all must innovate. 
• Our goods marketplace is global. 
• Having one income stream is a risky business. 

With that in mind, I took another look at aviation careers 2020-2021. 

• Recruitment is always affected by global and national economic developments: Recruitment was already impacted pre-COVID-19 by the unrest in Hong Kong, the 737 Max grounding, a protected market in the US and the unravelling of the European Union, and aviation will continue to be challenged for longer than expected. With the early relaxing of USA lockdown policy, you should watch the US airlines closely over the next six months as an indicator of recruitment movement. 
• The projected numbers of future pilots – do we still know?: In January this year, this projection had not changed. Boeing stated on their website “The 2019 Boeing Pilot and Technician Outlook, a respected industry forecast of personnel demand, projects that 804,000 new civil aviation pilots, 769,000 new maintenance technicians, and 914,000 new cabin crew will be needed to fly and maintain the world fleet over the next 20 years.” Does a projected two years of disruption, one that has already seen airlines that struggled financially preCOVID fail or go into receivership make us reassess who will be hiring and when? Yes it does. 
• The Australian airline jobs market: After several years of dramatic upturn, our local industry has had immediate casualties. Type rated pilots with seemingly secure airline careers are now in the job market. This will inevitably trickle down to limiting opportunities for those non-typed rated lower hours pilots and indeed those entry-level candidates. As borders slowly reopen, any recruitment will be staged with those on stand down first to be reinstalled operationally. 
• ADF employment: As a secure government employer, roles within the ADF will take on new value and therefore are likely to become more competitive. As a future-proof employer, their appeal may well widen. 
• Cadetships: The resumption of most airline pilot cadet programs in 2019 was a good sign for the industry and back to long-term thinking and planning. Late last year, most looked set to re-open in 2020, this is now an unknown. 
• The ‘no pilot jobs in 20 years’ rumours continue: The gossip that there will be pilotless cockpits in 10 years, and no career path for pilots in 20 years is a limited analysis. AI is indeed moving further into aviation, the factors that compound pilotless aircraft are immense and regulatory governance and consumer buy-in are slow animals when it comes to safety. 
• General Aviation in Australia: A good indicator of the availability of GA and corporate aviation positions is reflected reliably in the listings on the AFAP jobs site. This that is now reduced to two pages when it is usually in double figures. 
• Aviation professional roles: Thousands of industry professionals faced job loss, redundancy and uncertain stand downs in this first half of 2020. We have highly qualified and experienced professionals preparing to transition to other industries and others taking this opportunity to create additional income streams or commit to further education. Alternate industries will have access to this talented and experienced workforce for the first time. 

The key question you have been asking me since March; ‘Is my experience applicable to nonairline roles, aviation industry roles and non-industry companies?’ The answer is yes, be that an industry professional, pilot, cabin crew or engineer, you have skill sets and experience that will be valued outside the aviation industry. In the next 12-24 months transitioning is something to seriously consider. Having multiple income streams and a diverse career portfolio is something that I encourage to future-proof careers and incomes over the long term. 

It won’t be easy, each job will be highly contested, yet it only takes one employer to say yes. 

I have no doubt that we as an industry will prevail. The future looks dramatically different than we expected even three months ago, however that in itself will create innovation and opportunities for those ready and willing to embrace the only thing in life that is certain… change.