A Pilot Shortage ?

Several of our staff are pilots (and retired pilots) and since our staff has extensive aviation experience, we’ve seen an uptick from clients posing questions of why so many cancellations ? Why are they happening at times clearly not affected by weather or other uncontrollable environmental factors ? Both from clients traveling commercially as well as those whose focus is aviation.

The answer is multifaceted as it always is. While the certification process for pilots and ratings has ALWAYS been particularly onerous (demanding a HUGE investment of time and money–from someone–to gain the certification), today it’s no different than it was a couple of generations ago. Except for the creeping bureaucratic encumbrances and surveillance (affecting ALL career fields of all kinds; making things more difficult, less fun and more expensive). In concept, certification and training to become a pilot is no different than other fields like A/C technician, Diesel Mechanic, Truck/Bus driver, Railroad train operator, etc. (in fact, the pilot labor process is driven by the Railway Labor Act).

So what is different this time ? Why is there a shortage of pilots and how did it happen ?

Traditionally, airline pilots have been paid very well and the job is fun. However, NOT all airlines (or aviation jobs) pay all that well. There is a sort of apprenticeship where one climbs the ladder–potentially laden with debt at a low paying regional or instructor job (of note is that regional carriers–although often bearing the same paint scheme and sometimes even the names of the main carrier (eg. “American Eagle” and “American”)–have historically paid VERY poorly on startup (on par with a fast food worker for the first couple of years). So–if going the civilian route–the fledging pilot leaves training saddled with debt and barely able to make ends meet (military pilots are typically paid a livable salary while training and have these costs covered albeit at an increased service commitment. They ‘pay it back’ by being willing to deploy to austere places in third world countries while getting shot at). Aviation–on ALL levels–is an extremely capital and time intensive industry. There is a long lead time to train pilots (making this investment in time and people very critical to the industry). If a pilot walks, you lose ALOT of invested capital–and need to idle jets until you can find a suitable replacement (which will also take a large investment of time and money). Additionally, civilian pilots can lose their flying status on a whim; being subject to bureaucratic FAA trivialities. A simple glitch (and perhaps a very temporary one at that) in ones’ medical situation or arbitrary and unimportant FAA violation can end his or her career; perhaps permanently. So there is a fair bit of risk. But our experts don’t see this as a ROOT cause.

Most are familiar with Ayn Rand’s work “Atlas Shrugged.” It reads kind of like “Ulysses” so can be difficult to follow (although has some excellent examples in it which are particularly relevant to our economy today–it’s well worth reading if the reader can get through it). Perhaps less familiar is Leonard Read’s short essay “I, Pencil.” This distills the core concept and is relevant to pilots or anything else. To wit:

Click to access I%20Pencil.pdf

Think back a few months. We can all remember the various feckless Federal ‘mandates.’ Mask mandates, vax mandates, the various ‘lockdowns’ (which only served to destroy productivity, psychologically scar children, set a dangerous precedent of accepting truncation of civil liberty for any arbitrarily declared crisis, and harm humanity), you name it. When this happened, most major corporations threw in with the marxists rather than supported shareholders or employees. To this day, some of them support the very dangerous ‘woke’ paradigm of insanity, racism, and division. “Social Justice” comes from God; not from some insane ritual made up by man worshiping their ever changing philosophical golden calf. They threw their employees under the bus for personal gain, appearance, vanity, and power rather than stand up and do the right thing. This was incomprehensibly stupid on many levels; neither the vax manufacturers nor the government was liable for consequence while the corporations bore unlimited liability. AND stood a chance of losing their most talented employees; ones that may well vax anyway but saw real danger in being directed to do so or lose their jobs.

Kindly note we at D-J are NOT anti-vax; in fact, many of the staff ARE vaxed. We left the choice of vax and mask up to the individual and did not board the ‘panic train.’ We trusted them to make informed decisions and did not cave to mob fascism–or even illegal polices propagated by miscreants. This facilitated a culture of camaraderie and caring in our organization; not one of dictatorial edict. And employees are grateful for this.

Our belief is that many experienced pilots–having squirreled away enough resources to get by in their lives–simply saw their employer embracing the “ESG”/SJW style social communism BY these ‘mandates’ and decided it wasn’t worth it anymore. Why should THEY devote their time and talent to such a place ? And moved on–leaving a huge hole of talented workers. Deciding for themselves that their current employers were not worthy of their time and talent–and to use that time and talent elsewhere (perhaps working for themselves). Remember, money is simply a vehicle designed to convey an easy way to trade value of an individuals’ invested time for other goods and services. As such, these pilots simply retired and headed off to their own Valhalla–their own “Galt’s Gulch” of sorts. And the corporation and traveling public is rightfully left holding the bag.

We at D-J realize ones’ most important asset in one’s life is time. Chasing money or ‘stuff’ can often lead to an empty life full of regret; the joy is in the journey. The employers of these retiring pilots–motivated by throwing with a communist government–made the job not ‘fun’ anymore and certainly not worthy of devoting a large chunk of the retiring pilots’ life to. And enough so that they didn’t see a FUTURE in continuing to do it–a very high bar of destruction indeed. We think this is a key point–MOST people find joy in work and in being productive–and MOST jobs can be rewarding and fun no matter what they are. However, between the crony capitalists and the communists they managed to make the work drudgery rather than truly feeling a part of something better than one’s self. Even something as fun as flying. If they can do this to aviation they can do it to anything else.

In either “Atlas Shrugged” or “I, Pencil” one can see the denouement of how this situation turns out. And we’re seeing it today–namely inflation, stagflation, shortages, over-reliance on some authority figure to tell us how to live our lives, wanting to ‘do something’ by writing words on paper (that won’t work) following a mass shooting (when the real answer is arming/training those who might be on-scene to effectively deal with a threat), social division (which needn’t be there), you name it. We at D-J believe the American People are better than this, but ALSO realize that other cultures have gone through the same events (and this doesn’t always have a happy ending–witness Rhodesia, South Africa, Venezuela, etc). So we advise our clients to ‘go long’ on the situation (not throwing away a career that has potential over transitory glitches) — but also make an honest assessment of the future. Realize that you have extreme worth and your most precious asset is your time. Make the most of each day you have. And if the situation you’re in doesn’t allow for this then move on. If this means your own “Galt’s Gulch” then so be it.

To the traveling public, although “We Told You So”, we suggest they direct their frustration towards the corporate and government entities who set up this situation. And to realize if you were one of the ones supporting mask/vax ‘mandates’ (or whatever ‘mandates’ come down the pike) — or didn’t speak up against them–you are part of the problem and might want to re-evaluate your outlook in life. The situation is of YOUR own making.