certificates to European ones, according to Jared Friend, helicopter operations director at Hillsboro Heli Academy in Troutdale, Oregon. “You can use your flight training hours” after you return


home, Friend says. “But you basically have to retake all of your written exams there.” Also, US training doesn’t satisfy EASA requirements for


an instrument rating, Friend notes, even if it’s done at an EASA-approved US school. In some nations, unpredictable bureaucratic red tape


makes it difficult and overly expensive to start a flight school and bring students in-country. “Te single-most pressing issue for helicopter pilots is regulatory reform in individual countries,” says Capt. Mike Becker, founder and executive director of Becker Helicopter Services, parent company of Becker Helicopters Pilot Academy. Such factors squeeze the helicopter pilot pipeline—par-


ticularly the supply of experienced junior pilots—at a time when operations are starving for them. “A lot of operators report difficulty in finding qualified pilots,” says Cade Clark, HAI’s chief government affairs officer.


Fleeing flight


instructors and loads of red tape challenge trainers’ efforts to help stanch the growing pilot shortage.


By James T. McKenna


and other jobs to replace pilots hired by airlines. “Pre-COVID, instructors [stayed] around two-and-a-half


years after getting their [certificates],” she continues. “Now, I’m requiring a one-year commitment.” Another obstacle affecting international training is


countries disagreeing on standards for clearing new pilots to fly at home after training abroad. Te European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), for instance, doesn’t allow a new pilot returning from US training to convert FAA


Pilot Demand to Exceed Supply Analysts dissect the pilot shortage, which plagues most of aviation, differently. But reports by organizations such as Boeing, international training services and technology company CAE, the FAA, and business consultancy Oliver Wyman concur that the industry will soon be thousands of people short of the numbers needed to replace retiring pilots and support fleet growth. Some fleet growth may be dramatic. Boeing sees the


global airliner fleet increasing 98.2% by 2042, to 48,575 aircraft from just over 24,500 last year. Te FAA projects the US commercial aircraft fleet will grow to 10,286 in 2043 from 6,852 in 2022, a 50.1% jump. For the more tempered helicopter market, Airbus expects in-service fleet growth of 16.1%, to 30,568 rotorcraft in 2042 from 26,331 in 2022. Recent workforce forecasts by CAE and Oliver Wyman


reflect those numbers. Last June, CAE projected the world will need 284,000 new pilots of all types through 2031— 204,000 to replace retirees and 80,000 for growth. Oliver Wyman’s October 2023 analysis, which focused on the North American supply, offered good news. In July 2022, the company forecast a shortage of 30,000 pilots by 2032 (part of an 80,000-pilot gap worldwide). But it now expects the 2032 shortage to be 17,000. Tat outlook improved, Oliver Wyman says, because of


airlines’ responses to the shortage, which more than doubled to 17,000 last year from 8,000 in 2022. Airlines trained more pilots, raised pay, and enticed more existing aviators up the


MARCH 2024 ROTOR 35


HEAR


how Becker Helicopters prepares its students for an aviation career


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