The worldwide commercial aviation industry needs an additional 255,000 pilots by 2027 to sustain its rapid growth, according to a 10-year forecast published by training company CAE Inc yesterday.
More than half of the necessary pilots have not yet begun training, the report concluded, as the industry braces for an increase in passenger air traffic that is likely to double the size of the commercial air transport industry in the next 20 years.
“Rapid fleet expansion and high pilot retirement rates create a further need to develop 180,000 first officers into new airline captains, more than in any previous decade,” said the report by CAE, which trains pilots for airlines around the world.
Photo: Bloomberg
Pilot unions in the US have said low wages and scarce benefits for entry-level positions are deterring a new generation of potential aviators from pursuing the field.
In the US, training requirements also are a hurdle for many would-be pilots.
The US is the only nation to require copilots to have at least 1,500 flight hours unless they have experience flying planes in the military or are graduates of certain specialized programs.
According to the UN aviation agency, which sets global standards typically adopted by regulators from its 191 member nations, it takes a minimum of about 250 hours to obtain a commercial pilot license for work as a copilot.
By contrast, 1,500 hours is the minimum time required to become a captain under norms set by the International Civil Aviation Organization, the UN agency that supports the development of global aviation.
While the US Federal Aviation Administration had previously followed those norms, the 1,500-hour requirement for copilots was imposed following the crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407, a regional jet, in 2009 that killed 50 people.
The 1,500-hour mandate is supported by pilots’ unions as a way to improve air safety, but regional airlines and some aviation experts say the tougher standard does not make flying any safer, and has exacerbated the pilot shortage by making the training process longer and more costly.
“The idea was that you would fly a year or two as a paid copilot and then become a captain when you had the 1,500 hours,” one aviation source familiar with the matter said. “Now you have to get the 1,500 hours before you get the first paycheck.”
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
Taipei is today suspending its US$2.5 trillion stock market as Super Typhoon Krathon approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed-income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Yesterday, schools and offices were closed in several cities and counties in southern and eastern Taiwan, including in the key industrial port city of Kaohsiung. Taiwan, which started canceling flights, ship sailings and some train services earlier this week, has wind and rain advisories in place for much of the island. It regularly experiences typhoons, and in July shut offices and schools as
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
RSS