Flight school is outrageously expensive, and once you have your commercial certification, you almost always start out as a flight instructor making too little to handle the loans.
I went to a technical college for commercial flight training. I got as far as getting my private pilot cert and a multi-engine endorsement, then did an entire IFR course in the simulator… And then I was denied for any more loans to continue the training, so I went like $70k in debt towards a job I could never have.
Not that I was thrilled about the idea of being a flight instructor, either. I don’t have the patience for that…
They gotta figure out a way to make it actually affordable or attainable, without needing to join the military and all the bullshit that comes with that.
They gotta figure out a way to make it actually affordable or attainable, without needing to join the military and all the bullshit that comes with that.
The normal way this works is zero-interest federally-back student loans with a path to forgiveness via public service.
For pilots, perhaps include working as a pilot for (n) years means forgiveness.
Isn’t it sort of a walled garden that way, an industry captured by and protected by this large barrier to entry which ensures a supply of jobs to those to ex-military pilots? Seems to happen in a lot of industries, artificially limiting supply to protect a pre existing privilege. Or am I just imagining things, I’m not familiar with the aviation industry.
This seems like a great place to create a system where after initial training like yours, an airline could pick up the cost of further training kinda like a lot of trucking companies do. Like I get it, training to fly is a ton different than driving a truck, and the investment into a pilot would be a world different than tucking, but I bet an airline makes a lot more off a pilot than a shipping company does a trucker. So once a person proves their ability to make it through initial schooling, it would probably be a worthwhile investment for the airlines… Idk.
Basically indentured servitude, though. If a pilot is on the hook to pay it back to the company should they quit before it’s worked off, then they can be abused with that hanging over their heads…
I can’t think of a better solution other than maybe airlines creating their own schools to train their pilots after their initial training is complete. Do you have any thoughts on how the situation could be made better?
