Cadet pilots face uncertain future as Coronavirus turns shortage to surplus

SYDNEY/MONTREAL/ SEOUL — Mark, 34, quit his job as a town planner in London last year to start flighttraining school, buoyed by a conditional offer of employment with budget carrier easyJet at a time when the airline industry was desperately short of pilots.

The Coronavirus pandemic has changed all that, with carriers furloughing pilots by the thousands and airlines including easyJet, Delta Air Lines Inc and Germany’s Lufthansa forecasting they will be smaller for years until demand fully returns.

“It is like almost an entire career pulled from under your feet,” said Mark, who declined to provide his last name due to concerns about his future prospects.

He had expected to complete his 109,000 pound ($136,000), 18-month training program in December but now faces uncertainty over the timing due to lockdowns.

He remains in the dark about whether easyJet will still need new pilots when he completes his training or if he will be forced to look at other airlines or return to his old career.

An easyJet spokeswoman said the airline had instigated a recruitment freeze due to the pandemic impact which reduced the need for new pilots.

“We are continuing to review our pipeline of those cadet pilots set to join easyJet in the coming months and as soon as the situation changes we plan to prioritize roles for them,” she said.

The crisis marks a sharp reversal from recent years when some airlines had been paying sign-on bonuses of $25,000 to $30,000 to lure pilots, said Andre Allard, president of Montreal-based aviation sector recruitment agency AeroPersonnel.

“We used to run after the candidates,” he said. “Now they are running after us.”

Two years ago, some regional airlines grounded planes for lack of pilots and carriers such as Emirates and Australia’s Qantas Airways Ltd. struggled to fully utilize their jets because of training bottlenecks.

Now Qantas has shelved plans to open a second pilot training school due to the coronavirus, which has led it to ground the bulk of its fleet and place staff on unpaid leave. Major U.S. airlines have frozen pilot hiring.

The previous boom in pilot training could turn into a bust for schools that invested to accommodate more students.