Please stand by while we find a pilot

In our skies and on our roads, Canada’s facing its next transportation crisis – a shortage of experienced pilots and professional truck drivers.
“It’s having a large impact on a global scale, because it’s resulted in shifting pilots between countries,” says Marc-David Seidel, an aviation expert and associate professor at the University of British Columbia.
“You have emerging markets in Asia – China and India are the ones we’re hearing a lot about – and the Middle East all actively recruiting and taking Canadian pilots.”
That’s what happened to Capt. Brian Boucher, a veteran pilot who logged 29 years with Air Canada before disembarking for another carrier. Boucher is now flying for India’s Kingfisher Airlines and commutes to its New York City base for his shifts.
“All these airlines overseas now are starting to create bases here in North America and there’s no doubt more (Canadian) pilots will start flying for them,” Boucher says. “The pay’s better and the quality of life is better.”
Factor in large-scale retirements as Baby Boomer pilots reach age 60, the mandatory retirement age at most carriers, and insiders agree there’s turbulence ahead for the industry.
The world’s largest airline, American Airlines, didn’t have enough pilots to fly its planes in February. More than 50 flights were grounded when 143 pilots retired and the airline avoided further cancellations by putting 250 managers, who were qualified pilots, into cockpits.
Here in Canada, a hiring boom is underway as carriers try to navigate around a similar fate. Air Canada has hired nearly 700 pilots since July 2005, and with more than 100 pilots retiring every year, training courses for new hires are being offered at least every month.
At Vancouver-based Pro IFR, one of Canada’s largest professional flight centres, the crunch has already begun. After losing seven flight instructors last year, the company is now actively recruiting.
At American Eagle, applications are being accepted from pilots with 500 flight hours, which typically translates into less than a year’s experience. Of those hours, 100 need to be on a multi-engine airplane.
Western Canadian carrier Central Mountain Air, which flies between B.C. and Alberta, has gone a step further. It’s offering to hire “low-time pilots” to ground positions and then transition them into the cockpit.
07/03/08 Tess van Straaten/Business Edge, Canada