Liars, damn liars and statisticians.. I am willing to bet that none of
these are the true numbers. & I'll also bet that the United number was
a desired requirement, not a hard requirement, and they had 10 ways to
hire around it going through a hoop or two. Most of the major hiring is
from the smaller airlines. You don't get the big bucks until you
survive on the small bucks. I have two friends rising through the minor
airlines right now and they are semi-prime candidates but still going
through all the hoops. There is also a lot of washout on the minor
airlines from pilots that end up finding more money flying other paths
when they need to support their families. Air cargo and such.
On 9/23/25 9:46 AM, [email protected] wrote:
Seems airlines hire 5000 new pilots each year. (from one unknown source)
There are 10,000 new ATP certificates granted each year but half of
them wash out or pause flying prior to earning the coveted 5000 hours
that you need to become a first officer.
So, seems supply exactly equals demand (roughly). Other sources are
saying there is a shortage.
Now, add an artifical restriction, of that 5000 fully qualified ATPs,
your HR department says half have to be black/women.
Only 5% of that pool are women. So, there are 250 available.
Only 4% of pool are black. So that will get you 200.
450 total per year but your HR department mandated 10X that amount.
How will you fill that requirement? Only one way, reduce the number
of hours required. But even if you took it all the way down to the
1500 hours it takes to the the ATP you will still only have 900
available to fill 5X the requirement. And you will have 450
underqualified people sitting in the right seat in front.
I doubt the figure I found for needing 5000 new pilots industry wide.
I think it is low. I found another number saying that United
Airlines (the one that had that DEI policy for a while) uses about
2000 new ones each year.
Seems that United uses 40% of the pilots each year? In any event,
that would make the numbers still work out in a similar fashion.
Mandate 1000 where there are only 450 available assuming your company
gets all 450.
It’s math bitch, not racism.
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