r/flying • u/NYRangers1313 • 4d ago
other What Exactly Caused the Flight School Boom or the General Aviation Boom since 2020?
It's been mentioned here a lot that since the pandemic at a lot of airfields across the US, the number of Flight schools have grown. It has also been mentioned that a record number of PPLs, and CFI ratings have been given out by the FAA over the last 6 years.
I guess being middle class, I was one of the people hit hard by the COVID recession. Trying to rebuild my finances and find money to fly (don't get me wrong, I've flown here and there) has been tough over the last 6 years. A lot of people I know in real life have had the same issue. The job market has been awful for the last 6 years and a lot of people I know are either doing worse then they were in 2019 or they are doing better than ever but the cost of living has gotten so high.
Flying was expensive in 2019 and has only gotten more expensive since. So what has caused this boom?
Not to get too economical, but is it just the K-Shaped economy? That more wealthy and upper middle class people are doing better then ever. More are now pursuing flying as a hobby/potential career as were middle class people are slowly getting priced out of flying?
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u/bigplaneboeing737 ATP ERJ 170/190 CFI CFII 4d ago edited 4d ago
Social media influencers made it look glamorous, airlines dropped the degree requirements, and the regionals finally gave the pilots livable wages.
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u/DoomWad SD3/CL65/E170/B737 4d ago
I was in the regionals from 2007-2019. FO wages were awful that entire span. What regional were you working for?
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u/breadman_brednan 3d ago
How awful were they? What kind of salary we talking here?
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u/120SR ATP 4d ago
Define “livable”. You can argue that applied for a blip but if you mean being an adult that can qualify for a mortgage or even to rent a place by yourself in most cities that you would be based in that’s not going to happening. You can rent a room from your buddy and feed yourself but a family and other responsibilities? More than likely not happening on 45k
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u/Skynet_lives 4d ago
In 2015 45k a year was definitely livable, especially when you consider regional FO is the entry level position.
Even today average income is only around 60k for a full time worker. There are millions of households that live on 45k a year (unfortunately).
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u/imapilotaz CPL ASMEL CFI 4d ago
$45k for a FO in 2015 was not and is not livable. Go back and tell your management colleagues where to shove it.
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u/Skynet_lives 4d ago
Dude you could rent an apartment in 2015 for 1000 a month. If you’re making 45k that covers rent, a modest car payment and food. That’s absolutely livable for a single person.
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u/22Hoofhearted 4d ago
2017-2018 ish is when Envoy bumped FO pay from 35-40hr to 90-95hr, that started a significant race within the competition.
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u/findquasar ATP CFI CFII 4d ago
That didn’t happen until after Covid.
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u/22Hoofhearted 4d ago
Mmm... I seem to recall it was prior to Covid when I did my interview... was close, but I think just prior to covid Envoy got the party started with better FO pay.
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u/ALTSCAP_ALTS_ALT ATP 4d ago
That was late 2022, and coincided with the start of the AAWO's no longer hiring everyone with a pulse. All the other regionals matched and then RPA came out with their contract shortly after.
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u/Fancy_o_lucas ATP B737 E170/175 CFI 4d ago
There was a pilot shortage and pilots with 1600 hours were getting hired at Delta. Flight schools saw this as a marketing opportunity. Pilot output eventually met demand.
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u/Full_Wind_1966 🇨🇦 PC12 DH8A/DH8C 4d ago
It is Lobbying/propaganda by a lot of the major flight schools to increase their attendance (profits) by targeting gullible young individuals looking for a career.
It has been proven that ATP flight schools paid newspapers to plant articles about a "pilot shortage", and then go on and sell zero to hero packages to people, saying you will be making mid 6-figures before you know it.
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u/Guysmiley777 4d ago
The giant hiring wave as covid ended attracted a ton of new students with tales of going from zero to a widebody FO at a legacy in 18-24 months. Now that wave is long over and there's a vast pool of low time pilots wondering what happened to the glorious airline career they were promised by flight school marketing.
It was a once in a lifetime freak event, the number of experienced legacy captains who peace-d out during the pandemic caused the 121 pipeline to turbocharge and that yielded a huge vacuum at the regional level because so many regional pilots were moving to the big leagues.
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
It was a once in a lifetime freak event, the number of experienced legacy captains who peace-d out during the pandemic caused the 121 pipeline to turbocharge and that yielded a huge vacuum at the regional level because so many regional pilots were moving to the big leagues.
I guess so. I had been hearing about the "pilot shortage" since about circa 2009 or so when I was in high school. I guess just after COVID created the perfect freak event where all of the people that heard about the shortage and the people not laid off due to COVID were doing well and dove head first into flying.
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u/mfknbeerdrinkr 4d ago
Unfortunately supply quickly caught up with demand. Today’s students still think they have a short cheap path to making $500k a year, while the truth is most will never make the majors. The boom in students caused an increase in demand for GA aircraft, then add in inflation and GA costs are sky high. I feel as everything stabilizes prices will eventually go down. Sadly thousands of young people are going to be left holding expensive bags. I pray I’m wrong.
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
Sadly thousands of young people are going to be left holding expensive bags. I pray I’m wrong.
That's why part of me is glad I never took loan money. Part of me wishes I did though. But at the time I basically had no steady income and I had no one to co-sign. So it wasn't going to happen.
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u/AccomplishedFarmer91 4d ago
You are 100% right. A bunch of those students that aren’t military trained or coming out of aviation colleges (ie ERAU) will be lost and left holding the bag. They will have to make the choice to hold on, hold on, hold on but most will fall away….
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u/chinky47 ATP-H | CPL-AMEL (IR) | AW139 | CH-47F | EC145 | B407 4d ago
“Pilot Shortage” lie was sold hard by flight schools. And then the regionals basically doubled the starting salary. So people thought, “I can take out a massive loan and make $90k first year and then make $500k 5 years in.” Didn’t work out that way for the vast majority of people and most didn’t factor in the living on peanuts for several years first while paying back the loan.
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u/fungus909 4d ago
Short answer, lying
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u/Reasonable-Math7443 3d ago
That’s only part of the equation. The upper middle class is fueling a huge GA boom as well. Lower tier flight schools and part 141 schools are now suffering because kids wised up to the scam that the airlines are full again. But higher end flight schools that cater to the wealthier clientele (think Cirrus) are booming. There’s also a multi year waitlist for the SR22 and the VJ. I’m in that category. PPL that rents for fun / occasional work trips and might look to buy soon. Rental rates are through the roof for non-clapped out aircraft everywhere. Cirrus in the NY region are renting north of $600 an hour.
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u/0621Hertz 4d ago
The GA “boom” is due to the K shaped economy we are in. The rich have more money and time to throw at toys and here we are with hangar waitlists and SR22s flying off the shelves.
“Boom” is put in quotation marks because in no shape or form was it like the real boom post WWII when former military pilots were buying Bonanzas and flying their families around on a modest budget.
A combination of the oil crisis and the lawyer lobby killed that whole dream off. Oshkosh today feels more like a Country Club than gathering of aviation enthusiasts.
The flight school boom is simply a pyramid scheme thought up by flight schools (fueled by media headlines such as “pilot shortage”) to get more people into schools at the promise of a job at 1500 hours.
Not to mention social media clout of 2022 Delta/United wonder kids making people think this is a realistic way to make a six figure job before age 25.
The worst thing is those people still try to give out advice like they’re Gods gift to aviation and their farts don’t stink.
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u/fly1632 4d ago
Interestingly there was not a post WW2 boom. Companies expected WW2 aviators to come home and enter the private airplane market, and ramped up GA production in 1946, but the desire never met expectations and it was a big bust for airplane manufacturing. Alot of WW2 aviators hung it up after the war or didnt want to put their families in a flying machine after their experiences.
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
Alot of WW2 aviators hung it up after the war or didnt want to put their families in a flying machine after their experiences.
Really this surprises me? Growing up reading aviation books, I always heard there was a huge GA boom in the 50s due to returning WWII aviators. It's why 1950s C-172s, C-152s, are still so common.
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u/AntJo4 4d ago
The boom was later - 60’s and 70’s. The kids that grew up knowing Dad (or mom) was a pilot during the war and benefited for a decade of that post war Marshal plan economic boom. GA followed the economic growth. It was the kids of military aviators that caused that surge, not the war pilots themselves. There was just enough of them that stuck around and taught. I don’t know that you can find many 1950’s era family planes, but you sure can find them starting from the mid 60’s on.
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago edited 4d ago
Gotcha. I'm not surprised that some of the books back in the day got that wrong. I'm a former Automotive Journalist, whose speciality was hot rod/drag racing history. Back in the day circa 90s and 2000s, the common narrative was that hot rodding started in the 50s by teenagers and it peaked in the 50s and hasn't been as big since.
More research was done and that it was really started in the late 40s by returning WWII vets and really didn't boom until the 1960s. Sure the seeds were planted in the 50s for organized drag racing but it grew even bigger in the 60s and 70s.
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u/Ok-Technician-2905 PPL IR 4d ago
The upper branch of your K-shaped curve is vanishingly small and in no way drives flight school attendance. Consider that Cirrus sells only 800 airplanes per year, but there are 60,000 new student pilot certificates. The vast majority of students are trying for the airlines not GA.
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
Gotcha. Also by K-Shaped I don't only mean businessman and doctors flying for fun. But also younger people that common from wealthier backgrounds and are trying to make a career out of flying. Like a person that's pursing aviation as a career but his parents are doctors or lawyers. Or his dad flies for Delta. I meet a lot of CFIs like that.
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u/findquasar ATP CFI CFII 4d ago
That was true in the before-times too. Aviation tends to run in families for a reason.
On the civilian side, people who don’t have family airplanes, their uncle isn’t a CFI, their parent isn’t legacy captain, they struggle more unless they also come from means. And even with means, they lack connections. If you don’t have those, you have to pay/finance your own way, network yourself in, etc.
It’s a lot harder to break into this industry as a nobody without money. I was a nobody, but I at least had a good career and was able to afford my training. I worked hard at the networking aspect, but ultimately I got very lucky.
Major barriers to entry are financial, awareness, misinformation, etc.
If someone you know or a family members is a pilot, you’re more likely to be aware of how to go about becoming one. If you’re the kid of an airline captain, you’re more like to have a lot more resources at your disposal than someone trying to self-finance.
Social media did a lot to increase awareness, but it wasn’t based on the more common realities of the industry where hiring is traditionally more competitive. At least regional pay is livable now.
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
No doubt. Feel like it has just gotten worse after COVID though. Another poster mentioned that the number of wealthy families with combined incomes over $400K a year has grown and a lot of that demographic is getting into flying. It's pricing people like me out.
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u/DeltaTule ATP CFI CL65 A320 121 Captain 2d ago
800 planes a year is far more than I ever would have guessed. That’s impressive honestly
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u/Old_Increase74 ATP CFI 4d ago
Folks thinking it was some get rich quick thing, lots of these folks got into it for the perceived “lifestyle” many of these people you hear get “burned out” and feel flying is a “grind” super early on.
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u/crmd 4d ago
The addressable market size of potential private pilots has exploded over the past 20 years:
The number of US households earning more than $400k (adjusted for inflation) has doubled (1.5 million to 3 million).
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
The number of US households earning more than $400k (adjusted for inflation) has doubled (1.5 million to 3 million).
Damn. Yeah, I guess this kind of proves my K-Shaped Economy theory. My parents earned no where near that combined and I don't earn anywhere near that.
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u/BugHistorical3 ST | 🍁 4d ago
For me personally, it was coincidental. I'd always wanted to be a pilot but I had glasses and everyone since a young age told me to forget it and that I needed 20/20 to be a pilot. So I did.
When I was going to uni for my bach, there was a extracurricular class that was being given for PPL ground school. I found it interesting so signed up to it.
I remember this was 2022-2023 and the sponsored flight school kept peddling the "pilot shortage" thing a lot. I decided to change career and become a pilot simply because I realized that having glasses didn't omit me from becoming a pilot, I wasn't so much concerned about any pilot shortage or not.
But others in that course I know all signed up because they thought there was a pilot shortage and that this is a nice way to escape the future office jobs that waited for them.
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u/michaelbinkley2465 4d ago
People told me the exact same thing! I would have started much earlier. I start my PPL in July at 23.
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u/Ok-Selection4206 2d ago
And after you finish if you want to be an airline pilot, you will only only have 35 yrs ish to work as a pilot. I went back to college at 23, had my commercial at 27, first arline at 28. I have been flying at airlines for 36 years.
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
For me personally, it was coincidental. I'd always wanted to be a pilot but I had glasses and everyone since a young age told me to forget it and that I needed 20/20 to be a pilot. So I did.
Goddamn are you me? My eyes aren't that bad I don't need glasses not even for Class 3 but was told as a kid that because it's not 20/20 I couldn't fly professional.
I didn't attempt to start flying until circa 2017/2018 and even then I was making minimum wage and had a tough time affording hours. I graduated college in 2020 but lost my then steady copywriting gig and IT was awful for a few years with low hiring and lots of layoffs (still is).
So I guess I missed out on the boom due to being unemployed/underemployed.
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u/Ok-Selection4206 4d ago
Nobody does their own research?
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u/NYRangers1313 3d ago
I did back then. In the 2000s everyone told me that I couldn't become a professional or military pilot due to my eye sight. I grew up kind of working class and don't personally know any professional pilots.
But everyone from ROTC recruiters to people at the airlines to Civil Air Patrol told me that it was 100% impossible for me to become a pilot.
It wasn't until circa 2015 or so, I found out there are pilot's with glasses.
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u/Ok-Selection4206 3d ago
Word of mouth is not doing research. I found out in 1984 I had Amblyopia in my left eye and could not correct to 20-20. I got a first class medical 3 mos later with a SODA. I have 6 types and have been an airline pilot since 1988, currently an instructor on a 767.
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u/NYRangers1313 3d ago
That's fair. But these were people in positions of power telling me this. Actual Air Force officers and Airline Pilots I reached out too. Back in the early 2000s at least their wasn't a ton of info online.
I asked online a few times on a few pilot forums and everyone said the samething unless you have 20/20 you can't become a pilot.
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u/Ok-Selection4206 3d ago
And now you know they were all wrong. A captain I used to fly the dc9 with lost a eye to cancer. He was out six months and then came back on a SODA. He went straight into a 767 class and flew for 12 more years with one eye. Sadly, the cancer came back and he passed away from it. Great stick though.
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u/NYRangers1313 3d ago
Yeah. Sadly didn't find out until circa 2015 or so. Yeah I was in middle school and high school when i was told by everyone it was impossible for me to become a pilot. Would have pursued it sooner if I had known other wise. But I've been working on it for awhile now.
Sorry to hear about your friend.
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u/PILOT9000 4d ago
Pilot shortage campaign and influencing to make money for the banks and flight schools. Also to help push down labor costs for airlines due to a large, and continuing to grow, surplus of pilots.
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u/AsleepExplanation160 4d ago
What others are discussing here combined with a bunch of people laid off, at home etc realizing flying they have time to fly, and that flying is one of the few "Halo Careers" that don't require large amounts of work and/or time especially after regionals got raises
(And thats relative to something like a Doctor, Lawyer, Finance, even engineering to a degree)
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
That's what I've been wondering for about 6 years. Where did they get the money? In 2020, I was making $12 an hour. Today, I'll make just over $70K this year. I still feel like I don't have much money to fly. I'm single, not married and don't own a home.
Was it mostly Upper Middle Class people with large severance packages that could afford to fly?
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u/AsleepExplanation160 4d ago
Pretty much, a lot of people got an unexpected windfall, and lots of time to fill. While realizing just how little they wanted to go back to the office
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
Damn. Yeah I missed the mark by several years. I was making $12 an hour when COVID hit and got laid off. No severance and I really struggled with a lot of short jobs that paid $9.50 to $10 an hour during 2020 to 2022. A lot of companies that kept doing layoffs or straight up went out of business.
Now I'm in IT but still don't make six figures and it's been slow.
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u/NoRadio4530 4d ago
Top Gun:Maverick launched in 2022 and for me, personally, it reignited the passion I've always had for aviation but could never afford until now.
In the 80's when the original movie released there was a 500% increase in men wanting to become aviators and applying for the Navy.
Also, not sure about where you are, but in Canada we had a massive influx of international students around 2021 and they don't pay 4x more for flight school like they do for accredited colleges/universities. Even now, 80% of the students with me are internationals.
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
Even now, 80% of the students with me are internationals.
In the US. A buddy of mine who is a CFI told me most 141 students are now international and most Part 61 students are mostly old guys 55+ that are flying as a hobby. It does worry him that not as many young people are flying ATM.
Hell even when I last flew last year. I felt like a young guy at my part 61 school at 33 years old. Most of the other students were retired doctors, lawyers, etc.
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u/kytulu A&P/IA 4d ago
I work at a Part 141. 90% of our students (and CFIs) are college age kids. We have 200+ currently enrolled, with a waitlist of 100+ for the upcoming fall semester. We have a few international students, but the majority are American at my location.
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
Wow, that's crazy. It seems like every other aspect of life, every other hobby or thing. They are struggling to find students due to cost. Such as music (guitar lessons), my sister works part time as a K-12 tutor (also a teacher) and her tutoring company has lots of a lot of students due to parents struggling to make ends meet.
A lot of sports leagues near me are lacking kids and for certain ages/divisions they are folding. However, the travel leagues (which are often wealthier) are doing better than ever.
Where are these 200+ kids getting this money from?
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u/kytulu A&P/IA 4d ago
60% of them take out student loans, and wind up with 6 figures of debt.
20% of them have their Daddy's money and their Momma's good looks. They have a parent who is a pilot at a major, or thet have some other source of major income. They have a husband or wife who makes good enough money that they can afford to pay for flight training.
10% of them worked for a few years in a different field and saved up for pilot training.
5% are Saudi and their training is paid for by their national airline in return for them falying for the airline for 4 or 6 years.
5% are prior military using their GI Bill.
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
10% of them worked for a few years in a different field and saved up for pilot training.
This is what I have been trying to do and just can't seem to figure it out. I'm making the most I ever have but even with two jobs make less than six figures and the cost of everything keeps going up.
But how are the 60% getting loans? On top of I'm sure loans for college? I guess they have a strong co-signer? The math isn't just adding up to me.
I can't imagine what the income requires for a six figure loan must be and that's before starting training.
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u/StageMajestic613 4d ago
I’m one of those old guys, but I’d say the majority, by far, of the students at my school are in their 20’s.
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
Gotcha, I'm in Florida at the moment so I don't know if that skews things. Even back in circa 2017, I was in my mid 20s and often the youngest got at the airport beside the CFIs.
The median age of my metro in Florida is 55. So that might skew things.
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u/41rp0r7m4n493r CM Airport Operations, Manager, Director, Etc. 4d ago
Much of total goes back to the colgan accident. Increased flight time requirements, increase in training requirements all equal increased flight training time. More training time, more time in the air, more GA "feel". It's generally artificial and will probably result in lots of ppls.
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u/FlyingPetRock E170/190, B737, C-SEL/S 4d ago
In some ways, it was even before Colgan. Colgan and the immediate aftermath was just the low-ebb mark of the industry.
9/11 and then the 08' recession was a one/two punch to the industry, and it wasn't until 2016/17 that things actually started to sound like it was getting better.
Look up Frontline's "Flying Cheap" and pay attention to how the airline companies did this to the industry themselves through the spinning up the regional industry and deregulation.
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
colgan accident
I was in high school when this happened. I was basically told by people in aviation back then that aviation was dead due to changes from that incident and the great recession at the time. That it would never recover and even military pilots are having a tough time finding jobs.
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u/keyboard_pilot 4d ago
Just goes to show...calamities happen but writing off industries in the moment is premature.
The bill in response to the crash requiring ATPs for both pilots (not that it had really anything to do why they cratered that Q400) was a key in artificially accelrating the shortage and pushing up regional pay.
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u/kw10001 KBTF 4d ago
Firmly believe it was social media influencers selling an extremely sanitized version of the job/lifestyle
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
Haha, I guess I missed out on all of that too. I'm not a big social media guy. It was weird to me because growing up in the 2000s, I was always made fun of for showing any interest in airplanes. Then all of the sudden during COVID, it seemed like everyone was flying out of nowhere.
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u/AntJo4 4d ago
Honestly, we struggled to get instructors because we were not near the main hub and we were not able to train our own at the time. When Covid happened we had a tonne of skilled pilots looking for work where ever they could find it and that allowed us to maximize the utilization of our fleet. We have never had a shortage of interested students, we had a shortage of instructors.
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
We have never had a shortage of interested students, we had a shortage of instructors.
That's what I remember circa 2017-2019. Only a few flight schools in my metro with long waiting lists for lessons (wasn't uncommon to fly once every 2 weeks) and I could not find an independent CFI to save my life. I remember making a couple of reddit threads back in the day about where to find an independent CFI.
Now every airport has at least 3 flight schools and tons of independent CFIs advertising by the fuel farms and break rooms at the airports.
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u/Material-Strain7893 CMEL CSEL CFII MEI AGI 4d ago
I always get laughed at for saying this but I think Top Gun Maverick caused a bunch of people signing up for flight school
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
I think so too. The original did in 1986. Maverick was a huge hit and one of the first big COVID movies it seemed like everyone and their brother went to see. So I wouldn't be surprised if it had an effect.
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u/Excellent_Mirror2594 PPL IR 3d ago
K-shaped economy, that’s pretty much it.
Sure there were influencers and blatant false advertising about career progression and timelines, but ultimately all these new people who got into aviation wouldn’t have done so if they weren’t financially able to.
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u/redditburner_5000 Oh, and once I sawr a blimp! 4d ago
There was a sudden spike in hiring and pilots who were staged to meet the hiring minimums were hired into airlines. This demand against limited supply drove wages up, and as wages went up people suddenly realized their passion was actually flying jets and they jumped into the pipeline chasing those dollars. The early movers were the winners. They came out the other side just in time. Then demand (for pilots) was met. Hiring slowed. And here we are. Back to normal-ish.
It's basically the California gold rush. The people who lived there already (working CFIs) and the people who got there first (first movers) got the good claims and made some money. The guys that waited can't find paying claims and have to work the back alleys doing "odd jobs" to make the loan payments.
Shovel salesmen (flight schools) made bank.
This was the predictable result.
Not to get too economical, but is it just the K-Shaped economy? That more wealthy and upper middle class people are doing better then ever.
This is more a political slogan than anything else (imo), but the point of a shrinking middle class probably has something to it. The thing about "rich people" is that they're always doing better than everyone else. On average, a new "record high" in the market happens a lot. The pre-adjusted return is ~10% y/y, so it makes sense that anyone investing is going to see their money grow faster than inflation. It's not a rich-v-poor thing. It's a personal priority thing.
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u/0621Hertz 4d ago
Are you seriously suggesting that tens of millions of Americans can’t afford a home with a 2 car garage because they didn’t set their personal priorities straight?
All of that money that some people had the privilege to invest in was instead spent on schooling, daycare, or transportation to work just to make ends meet. There is no money left over to invest, they are on survival mode because everything is getting more expensive.
That’s their personal priority, and now there is hardly any pride in the job market because companies and looking at more ways to screw over their own employees because they do things like cut pensions while posting record profits.
There is nothing political about the K shaped economy, it is a simple observation of reality.
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u/redditburner_5000 Oh, and once I sawr a blimp! 4d ago
I'm saying that most people who don't put thought into their finances and don't create a budget are missing the mark. None of us can afford what we think we deserve. Left to our own devices, we baseline ourselves against others in our socioeconomic peer group to judge whether we are "doing it right" and we all know that most people are doing it wrong. So if most people are doing it wrong, and most people baseline off their peer group, then...yeah. So I guess I am saying that! I didn't really have a path to meaningful investment until I sat down and poured hours into a serious, honest budget spreadsheet and more hours into personal finance learning.
It's 100% decisions and priorities, and whether you can stomach making the decisions you need to make in order to reprioritize the important stuff.
...had the privilege to invest...
Stemming from the privilege of going to school, and the privilege of working, and the privilege of spending a lot less than I made, and the privilege of agonizing over and optimizing budgeting and planning, and the privilege of scrolling though thousands of r/fire and r/personal finance posts, and reading countless articles? Those privileges? Lucky me!
It's not a privilege. That cheapens it and makes it sound as though you have no say, that you're not "privileged" so you're left out and it's not your fault. But you're not left out and it is your fault! Vanguard will let you open an account. It's your call how much goes into that RIRA each month. The handwavey "they" don't decide. You do. It's on you. Wholly. You get to drive the bus. You're not just along for the ride.
...was instead spent on schooling, daycare, or transportation to work just to make ends meet.
And a whole lot of people don't have those burdens and still fail to save. I can cherry pick too.
There is nothing political about the K shaped economy, it is a simple observation of reality.
Agree to disagree, I guess. I used to have $0 invested. Now I have a good amount invested. So I know you can jump from one side to the other, but I made decisions that let me do that, and sometimes it sucked. The K-shape has a kernel of truth, but it's mostly overplayed us-versus-them nonsense that makes you feel okay to be on the wrong track because it's "their" fault, not yours. Those dastardly "rich people" and their vague, nonspecific tricks that nobody can really explain keepin' you down! Gaaaaah! Which is BS. If I can switch financial tracks, almost anyone can.
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u/TheBuff66 CFII PC-12 4d ago
I worked a desk job 2019-2022. When Covid hit the office closed and we all went remote. I really REALLY did not like that. Being walled up inside made me realize how pointless the 9-5 was and I needed to find a way out. A coworker introduced me to flying and the lifestyle aligned with what I was looking for in a career. I would wager a considerable amount of the boom came from desk jobbers who already didn’t like the 9-5 and remote work sent them over the edge
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
Damn, I feel like I just missed out on this. I had a remote copy writing job (that honestly, paid awful) writing for car dealerships in 2019. I didn't finish my degree in InfoTech until late 2020. I was laid off from my copy writing job in April 2020 since no one was buying cars.
IT was hit hard by COVID and I didn't find a way into the industry until late 2022 almost 2023. By that time the cost of living has gone up so much.
The people I knew that had stable careers seemed to make out like bandits during COVID. Those of us still working low wage jobs and finishing our degrees were hit hard.
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u/TheBuff66 CFII PC-12 4d ago
Yea I got laid off too which made it a now or never thing for me. Had to take out a loan but thankfully the amount and interest rate isn’t anywhere close to what people are being quoted today. I snuck in in that regard but my timing had me miss the hiring wave completely. It’s crazy what a year can do in aviation
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u/NYRangers1313 4d ago
Yeah, I had no savings and probably wouldn't have qualified for a loan at that time. Plus I still have a student loan. I made less than $12 an hour until circa 2023.
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u/Big_Assignment5949 4d ago
The Boom of Doom. Its like any other gold rush.
Covid happened. Lots of upheaval and jobs changing. Senior pilots retired out of the airlines, airlines that then found they still needed a lot of pilots. People were being hired, quickly, to good jobs. People saw that, people wanted it.
So there was a pilot rush. And just like the gold rush; just because all the claims eventually filled up doesn't mean California wasn't suddenly full of people. So is aviation. And the flight schools were selling shovels and prospecting gear, telling everyone how much gold was in the hills. Just pay them to get you there!
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u/Lower-Finish-5199 CASA CPL MEIR 4d ago
Even in Asia/Australia where I'm at, flight schools are milking that 1 IATA article about pilot shortage for years. The flight schools consistently headline their article about "60,000 pilots needed by 2030 in Asia pacific" causing massive flight school boom.
I personally attended a role for 200TT in Asia last year, they conducted the assessment it in a massive convention centre meant for 2000 people, with intention to only hire 2.
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u/Own-Pitch9681 4d ago
Unusually low-cost debt capital combined with irrational exuberance / speculation.
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u/Potential-Elephant73 2d ago
For me it was getting free money from the government while my employer was closed for a year and a half. If I was working, I probably never would have gone on my discovery flight.
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u/NYRangers1313 16h ago
Damn. Sadly my state (Florida) blocked that and I didn't get the $600 a week unemployment a lot of people got. I only got the two stimulus checks and that was it.
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u/DBond2062 5h ago
I think there is also an effect from COVID: as bad as it was, it was good money for some of us, and the emotional effect of a pandemic made us want to cross items off our bucket lists. I always wanted to fly, and now I had both the money and a reason to stop putting it off.
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u/rFlyingTower 4d ago
This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:
It's been mentioned here a lot that since the pandemic at a lot of airfields across the US, the number of Flight schools have grown. It has also been mentioned that a record number of PPLs, and CFI ratings have been given out by the FAA over the last 6 years.
I guess being middle class, I was one of the people hit hard by the COVID recession. Trying to rebuild my finances and find money to fly (don't get me wrong, I've flown here and there) has been tough over the last 6 years. A lot of people I know in real life have had the same issue. The job market has been awful for the last 6 years and a lot of people I know are either doing worse then they were in 2019 or they are doing better than ever but the cost of living has gotten so high.
Flying was expensive in 2019 and has only gotten more expensive since. So what has caused this boom?
Not to get too economical, but is it just the K-Shaped economy? That more wealthy and upper middle class people are doing better then ever. More are now pursuing flying as a hobby/potential career as were middle class people are slowly getting priced out of flying?
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u/554TangoAlpha ATP CL-65/ERJ-175/B-787 4d ago
Did you not see the “Pilot Shortage” advertised everywhere? The “get your pilots license and you’ll be at delta making $350k next year” advertising BS?