Pilot Shortage - a puzzling, absurd levels of misinformation
Posted by cazzipropri@reddit | flying | View on Reddit | 36 comments
Published today.
Articles like these that make pre-canned claims with no numbers, no research work, no sources, unrelated stock images, signs of AI sloptext, and random posts from social media make me wonder what's behind them.
Why would someone invest time in generating contents like this?
What are the incentives?
Sir_Lovablefoot@reddit
The answer is money lol. Flight schools have been actively pushing this bs for years
MiniTab@reddit
I too remember Kit Darby, lol.
Flimsy-Ad-858@reddit
What do you mean remember? Isn't he still out doing his thing?
aDustyHusky@reddit
Just listened to a podcast with him as a guest yesterday and he was talking about how the country is 24k pilots short and there are planes sitting all over the place uncrewed. So yeah, definitely still around.
gromm93@reddit
Decades, actually.
Even the government around here was in on the gig a few years ago.
Gabriel_Owners@reddit
The "pilot shortage" narrative has been pushed for longer than most redditors have been alive.
Take a step back and think...Who benefits from advertising a pilot shortage?
That's right...flight schools. And now it's easier than ever to generate these articles by slapping it out of ChatGPT.
baritone_mike@reddit
Aviation is the most obvious pyramid scheme around and yet people (including me) still buy in to it.
Gabriel_Owners@reddit
It's not a pyramid scheme. You just have to not be a sucker and have basic financial literacy.
T-1A_pilot@reddit
See?? For me, totally a pyramid scheme!!!
Pangolin_farmer@reddit
There are definitely pyramid scheme-esque aspects.
“Give us a bunch of money and eventually you can get to a point where you can participate in receiving money after you’ve given us enough money.” Flight schools are totally a pyramid schemes until you reach escape velocity and get a job flying pax/cargo.
74_Jeep_Cherokee@reddit
That's true for pretty much any school.
Fit_Homework532@reddit
Also to get to 1500 most people are CFIs. You get anywhere from 50-125 hours of dual per student so you need 10-25 students to get there. Looks like a pretty wide effing pyramid to me.
baritone_mike@reddit
Definitely no similarities at all
How Pyramid Schemes Function Recruitment-Driven: Income is based on signing up new participants, not selling products to the public. Upfront Costs: Participants are often required to pay high initial fees or buy large amounts of inventory, which they cannot resell. Unsustainable Structure: As the number of participants multiplies, finding new recruits becomes impossible, causing the system to collapse. Result: Most participants (about 89% or more) lose their money, while only those at the top make a profit.
Wikipedia +3 Identifying Red Flags Promises of high returns in a short time. Emphasis on recruiting others rather than selling products. Pressure to buy excessive inventory or pay for training.
showerstool3@reddit
While I don’t disagree that flight schools harp on a “pilot shortage” for marketing, when I was working at Boeing in 2018 they often talked about a pilot shortage in the 2020-2035 range. It’s not just flights schools pushing this
Mike__O@reddit
You clicked on it and read it. You answered your own question
SeaMareOcean@reddit
Plot Twist: OP is a guerrilla marketing operative.
554TangoAlpha@reddit
Stop posting and reading simpleflying its AI garbage.
Guysmiley777@reddit
That's the neat thing, they don't! They spend 30 seconds copy-pasting an LLM prompt output into some open source CMS and then collect ad revenue from their shitty clickbait.
Flimsy-Ad-858@reddit
Hey, it worked for Flying magazine 🤷
stickJ0ckey@reddit
Flight schools sell this BS to get people to pre-pay for their CPL/ATPL programs then will do anything to get people to drop out (bait and switch)
Airlines advertise fake shortage of pilots so they increase their pool of candidates and pay lower salaries (increasing supply with constant demand lowers pricing)
Physical-Program-509@reddit
Sounds like an article reinforcing the majority of the popular opinions on this sub.
Anyone who posts actual numbers or tries to have an honest discussion is a clearly a doom and gloomer or bitter.
It’s obviously in a lot of people’s interest that pyramid scheme continue until they get hired by their forever airline, lest they get caught holding a bag, so they try to upsell really positive messaging about career opportunities and feel good stories that are only half true.
The good news is these opinions are increasingly becoming very obvious to identify as not factually correct. It is disappointing to see so many 121 flaired people (a lot of whom were hired 22-24 ) continuing to reinforce those ideas
No_Diver_2133@reddit
Aviation is a poorly run MLM.
14Three8@reddit
Flight schools have been saying it as a marketing tool since forever.
Airlines have been saying it as a way to divert blame during delays and cancellations, and as a marketing tool for their pathway programs and flight schools.
The unions have been denying it for forever, claiming it’s actually a shortage of qualified PICs.
Everybody has their own spin on it because everyone has their own incentives.
ParkingOpportunity39@reddit
There’s probably enough bodies to fill up classes, but I’m with the unions on this one. I’m a fairly junior captain at a major, so I see this first hand.
14Three8@reddit
A quick look at online job boards shows a ton of jobs for captains, floating captains, PICs, senior captains, etc. they want 3000+ hours and 2k turbine time, but they don’t want to pay for it
sprulz@reddit
Gonna disagree with the folks here and say that this isn’t some conspiracy by Big Flight School to get you to part ways with your money. This is a not-so-subtle fluff piece by the Age 67/LEPFers - you can tell by all the references to losing “experienced” pilots and whatnot.
herknav@reddit
“(fill in the blank): absurd levels of misinformation” is our new world, and it’s bigger than the topic of a fake pilot shortage.
journalism is all but dead, and what’s left is behind paywalls. the “information domain” is essentially unmoderated, and the only profit margin to be found is razor-thin, is clickbait-driven, and is accessed through emotional manipulation at scale rather than through professional research and analysis. resultantly, lies and vibes have (by volume) superseded the truth online.
The age of information has very quickly become the age of misinformation, and it’s tough to imagine how we fix it.
timelessblur@reddit
There is a shortage but it will be short lived and the shortage is the gap of qualified ATP pilots coming but the biggest issue is there is a huge glut of pilots getting to 1500 hours. The top of the funnel demand is not changing and it will not be long before there will be a massive glut.
Needs2GetLaid@reddit
Flight schools need students.
TheTangoFox@reddit
Pilots will come out of the woodwork for the right $
Muted-Rhubarb2143@reddit
Everything is like this now. AI garbage prattling on about nothing. Are you just noticing?
ATrainDerailReturns@reddit
Pilot Shortage source?
I made it the fuck up
BathFullOfDucks@reddit
The bolds, the links, the tone, this was definitely written by Ai.
hawker1172@reddit
Lobbying from Captain Steve and his boomer congressional buddies
74_Jeep_Cherokee@reddit
Brought to you by - Sleazy Flight Schools that will Rape You of ALL Your Money
rFlyingTower@reddit
This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:
Published today.
Articles like these that make pre-canned claims with no numbers, no research work, no sources, unrelated stock images, signs of AI sloptext, and random posts from social media make me wonder what's behind them.
Why would someone invest time in generating contents like this?
What are the incentives?
Please downvote this comment until it collapses.
Questions about this comment? Please see this wiki post before contacting the mods.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. If you have any questions, please contact the mods of this subreddit.