Global pilot shortage hits Australia, with cancelled regional routes just the beginning
Australia’s passengers are becoming used to flights being cancelled due to weather, or even volcanoes, but now a new trend is beginning to upset travel plans across the country
Airlines are having to cancel flights, and even entire routes, because there literally isn’t anyone available to fly the plane
A total of 10,808 domestic flights were cancelled last year, according to the latest annual report from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics — at a rate of 1.9 per cent, up from the long-term average of 1.4 per cent.
While it is hard to determine exactly how many of these cancellations were caused by a pilot shortage, analysts say the situation is set to worsen in one of the world’s fastest growing industries.
The most recent statistics from Boeing predict over the next two decades that 640,000 new pilots will be needed to sustain the industry, with almost 40 per cent of those required in the Asia-Pacific region.
In recent year, a growing trend has emerged of Australian pilots taking off for lucrative deals with overseas airlines, particularly in the Middle East and China.
It is a complex situation with nobody in the industry able to agree on how best to move forward, or even determine what exactly has caused the pilot drought.
Customers to suffer in ‘perfect storm’
At this stage, it is mostly regional carriers and smaller charter services being hit — but the impact is being felt across the community.
Just this weekend, the Carnarvon races in WA’s north were cancelled when it was announced staff and jockeys could not get a pilot to charter them to the event. It is a similar story in the Northern Territory where ChartAir, a charter carrier that provides crucial services to remote areas, has had to permanently ground one of its planes.
ChartAir chief executive officer Douglas Hendry said the company was turning away at least a million dollars in business each year. “Traditionally you had pilots joining us for three to four years. It was like an apprenticeship,” he said.
“[But] we’ve seen junior pilots, who don’t really meet any of the minimum requirements that the airlines used to have, are now leaving us much sooner.” Mr Hendry said the global demand of major airlines was driving the shortage, but in the end it was the smaller players in the industry — and ultimately customers — who were suffering. “The Chinese carriers are looking to recruit hundreds of thousands of pilots over the next 15 to 20 years,” he said. “Coupled to that, we’ve seen Qantas are having between 300 and 600 pilots retiring over the next couple of years [who] they have to replace, and then Qantas bringing online new aircraft like the Dreamliner that they need new crews to fly.
Pilot shortage impacting flying schools
For David Currey, who heads the Aero Club of WA training academy, the shortage means fewer pilot teachers.
“You must appreciate with pilot shortage it starts from the big boys — the Qantas, Virgins — they start recruiting from the regionals, such as Skippers Alliance Network, and they then come and they recruit from the flying schools,” he said.
It is a great deal of change in an already dynamic industry. The Aero Club runs out of Jandakot Airport, a general aviation hub in metropolitan Perth. Now, China Southern Airlines has a pilot academy due to reopen at the airfield while a Singaporeowned pilot school has also applied to operate in the space. “I believe that within the next year there’ll be a minimum of 70 extra instructor jobs being created at Jandakot Airport,” Mr Currey said.
“[It’s] a demand that will be difficult to fill.”
Qantas, Virgin accused of ‘rapacious plundering’
Earlier this month Regional Airlines — also known as Rex — issued a statement to its customers warning of potential cancellations due to a “critical pilot shortage”.
“Rex is not able to have its usual contingent of stand-by pilots rostered for duty,” chief operating officer Neville Howell said. “Consequently any last-minute sick leave may result in flights being cancelled or combined with other routes.”