Some suggest raising the mandatory retirement age of international pilots from 65 to 67 to overcome chronic staffing shortages – Image: Cavan Images/IMAGO
Many airlines worldwide are struggling to fill their cockpits with experienced pilots as demand for air travel grows. Can signing bonuses and fast-track promotions make up for a massive retirement wave?
Flying is just not what it used to be. Long lines to go through security, cyberattacks on airport check-in systems, labor strikes, lost bags and cancellations. Now on top of all that, there is a global shortage of pilots and airlines are feeling the pinch.
At the same time, the pandemic inspired many senior pilots to unexpectedly retire early. More are waiting to hang up their wings, particularly in North America.
This leaves airlines with the double challenge of compensating for a wave of retirements and finding more pilots amid increasing demand for air travel, particularly leisure travel.
How many pilots are needed?
The current growth in air travel has surprised many airlines, said Christoph Klingenberg, an expert in airline and airport management at Worms University of Applied Sciences in Germany.
“Since it takes several years to train pilots, the situation will take a couple of years to normalize,” Klingenberg told DW.
How many pilots will be needed varies greatly depending on the source.
The US alone will have about 18,200 job openings for airline and commercial pilots each year for the next decade, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook
. Added together, that comes to over 180,000 new US-based pilot jobs.
Taking both passenger and freight into account, planemaker Boeing recently estimated
that a whopping 660,000 new commercial pilots will be needed worldwide by 2044.
Becoming a pilot is a big investment
“Aspiring pilots who begin their training today will be well-positioned to seize emerging opportunities by the time they graduate,” according to the Boeing report. To meet this huge demand, aspiring pilots must have access to “relevant, affordable and accessible training.”
Although experienced pilots can earn a lot, getting into the cockpit is a long and expensive journey itself.
In the US, flight training can cost over $100,000 (€85,000), a daunting amount likely to discourage many from dreaming of an aviation job.
During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, pilot training was put on hold in many places as companies waited to see what the pandemic would do to the travel industry. Today, as air travel rebounds, there is a training backlog, and schools are struggling to get new pilots in the air.
In addition to other certifications and ratings, the US Federal Aviation Administration requires all first officers at an airline providing scheduled passenger air service to have an Air Trasport Pilot (ATP) certificate. This means an additional 1,500 hours of flight experience, a requirement that can take another one to two years for pilots coming out of school to meet.
Job prospects for pilots are better than ever despite the cost and time involved in getting a license – Image: Unai Huizi/imagebroker/IMAGO
Just pay pilots more?
Recently, many major and regional airlines have increased pilot pay to attract more applications and keep the pilots they already have.
“The biggest way to make a commercial airline pilot job more attractive is to increase the pay,” said Dan Bubb, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, specializing in commercial aviation. “For many years, this was especially noticeable with regional airlines, where the pay was deplorably low.”
“Today, pilot salaries are higher than I have seen in a long time,” Bubb, who is also a former airline pilot, told DW.
Besides higher base salaries, some airlines are also offering bonuses and other perks to find and retain pilots. Others are designing better work-life-balanced schedules for flight crews. All costs that add to passenger ticket prices.
But not all companies are so generous. Just this week, Lufthansa pilots voted in favor of a strike after negotiations over pension contributions fell apart. So far, no strike date has been announced. It would be the first Lufthansa pilot strike since 2022.
Mandatory retirement at 60, 65 or 67?
Two decades ago, international airline pilots were forced to retire at 60, according to rules put in place by the International Civil Aviation Organization. The group, which is based in Montreal, Canada, and an agency of the United Nations, sets regulations for civil aviation in over 190 countries.
With advances in health the retirement age was raised to 65 in 2006. Pointing to pilot shortages and even higher health standards, now some are proposing raising the retirement age to 67.
“Flight experience, often associated with age, is significantly correlated with flight safety,” wrote US Senator Ted Cruz in a September 19 letter to President Donald Trump looking for support in increasing the mandatory pilot retirement age.
“Having an ‘arbitrary’ retirement age is also making air travel more expensive!” added Cruz. “As you know, in economics, less supply necessarily leads to higher prices.”
Whatever the economics behind it are, the idea has run into opposition from pilot unions. And, so far, both the Civil Aviation Organization and the Federal Aviation Administration have kept the current retirement age in place.
Even for chancellors learning to fly is a long and expensive process and always starts with small aircraft – German chancellor Friedrich Merz in the cockpit captaining a small private plane with his wife in the passenger seat in 2022 – Image: Axel Heimken/dpa/picture alliance
What else are airlines doing to lure pilots?
To keep the supply of new pilots flowing and those already in the air happy, airlines need to increase their hiring efforts, expand training facilities and recruit pilots from other noncommercial airlines, argues Christoph Klingenberg.
He also suspects raising the retirement age to 67 is “a step in the right direction.”
Some airlines around the world are hiring pilots with considerably fewer hours under their belts, offering big signing bonuses and waiving certain requirements, said Bubb. Still, they, too, must undergo rigorous training and pass exams before they can take control of a plane’s yoke.
More automation in the cockpit?
Could artificial intelligence (AI) or increased automation in the cockpit make up for a lack of pilots?
While many industries are latching onto the idea of using AI to streamline work, airlines are holding back for now in the cockpit, said Klingenberg, and doesn’t expect that to change much in the coming decades.
AI will play a significant role but not replace pilots, said Bubb. “I have no doubt that AI will make air travel more efficient, in terms of time and fuel burn, but not replace humans,” he said.
As for getting more live pilots in the air, it really depends on how many are needed as the demand for air travel increases. “I expect the situation to improve after 2030, so it might take five years to recover,” concluded Klingenberg.
Bubb thinks the shortage situation will “remain moderate” and spots a chance for the industry.
“It is an opportunity for airlines to plan ahead so that they are proactive instead of being reactive whenever there is a shortage of pilots looming,” he added.
(DW.com/NAN 06-10-25)
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