Flight Operations Pilot

In late 2012, representatives of 14 major U.S. airlines and regional carriers joined Embry-Riddle, the world’s largest university specializing in aviation and aerospace, for a Pilot Supply Summit to address the looming projected shortage facing the aviation industry as veteran pilots retire from the flight deck and more airplanes enter the sky.

In 2010, there were an estimated 460,000 licensed pilots in the world. “More than 980,000 are expected to be needed by 2030,” according to the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). 2030 seems like a long time off, but as Dr. Tim Brady, dean of Embry-Riddle’s College of Aviation at its Daytona Beach Campus pointed out, “it’s not a future problem; it is upon us now.”

Indeed, ICAO calculates that approximately 52,500 pilots will have to be trained each year in Canada and elsewhere to meet demand. This means a lot of opportunities for Canadian flight school and aviation college graduates. In addition to major airlines such as Air Canada, WestJet, Porter and Jazz (branded as Air Canada Ex- press), Transport Canada estimates there are more than 800 on-demand aviation service providers.

Canada’s geography and resource-based economy presents many interesting flight opportunities outside of the airline sector, including piloting floatplanes along the British Columbia coast, flying into remote mining towns in the booming north, taking the controls of a new-generation corporate jet out of Pearson, and passing your knowledge onto students as a flight instructor. There are also a variety of speciality services such as law enforcement and medical emergency.

Future pilots should enter flight school with a sense of direction on where they want their career to go, and whether that careers fits with their preferred lifestyle. For example, being a pilot for a charter operator often involves flying on short notice and has less routine than flying for a scheduled operator.

Most pilots work toward the 1,500 hours flying time necessary for an Airline Transport Pilot Licence, which means there is a lot of time to fill from the less than 200 hours that the average flying school student graduates with. Entry-level jobs at this stage would include flight instructor, air taxi pilot or general aviation pilot as you build up the time.

There is also the Canadian Forces. As would be expected, military flying is one of the most demanding careers in aviation, including fighter pilots, search and rescue, and flying heavy-lift transports into some of the world’s toughest airports.

Larger airlines such as Air Canada, WestJet and Air Transat tend to hire pilots who have built up flying time over several years. It is not uncommon for a recruit to have clocked more than 500 hours flying heavy jets. As Canada’s larger airlines accelerate recruitment by hiring from the military (less of a source of new pilots than once was the case) and regional airlines, it has a “pull” effect on the industry as a whole as pilots from operators and flight instructors are recruited higher up the chain.