mdwest
AH ambassador
Im not sure I agree with Aboulafia...Boeing already have a 7 year backlog on orders....and Qatar has a lot of planes on order as is.....a lot can change in that period of time...
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If Airbus, Boeing and others increase production, who exactly is going to fly all of these new planes?
There haven't been enough pilots to fly the airframes and the scheduled routes in the commercial aviation side of the house in years (COVID escalated this to a global scale.. but its been a problem in the US and Europe for more than a decade).. and on the military side the problem is actually worse..
And the shortage is getting worse, not better..
By 2032 its expected that there will be a global shortage of qualified commercial pilots of about 80,000..
Right now airlines are largely just ordering enough aircraft, and scheduling the delivery of those aircraft to meet the timelines they expect for replacing older aircraft in their fleets.. no one is expanding their fleets in large numbers, because there simply arent enough pilots to fly any additional aircraft they might add..
the world is becoming more and more jet-set... but the pilot career field isn't all that appealing anymore, and enough young people arent entering at a rate to keep up with the expanding demand