Frequently I get the question if you should start flight school now? To save you a lot of reading: my answer is “NO!” Let me explain to you why and some little side stories about what happened to me.
Due to the Covid19 epidemic, we have a crisis on our hands. a reduction of more than 90% of flights at its peak. Only cargo planes did fly and airlines tried their best to convert their planes for cargo as well. But this is just a small part of aviation. That means there are fewer flights going. Now about 4 months later after Corona hit Europe we can see that aviation is far from what it used to be before corona. There are a lot of experienced pilots on the market because they got fired because of the corona.
So, on the question should I start flight school now I would advise you the following: Just don’t do it now. You will finish flight school in about 1.5 years. The aviation business will still be in recovering mode like in the last economical recession that took about 5 years to recover. The same is happening right now.
Let’s imagine, you finish flight school in about 1.5 years. you will have 185 hours on single-engine piston aircraft and maybe an MCC course. Now you have to beg for the same job as these other guys with thousands of hours. I know it is shitty but the guys with hours mostly win. Companies look for experience and that makes it incredibly difficult to land your first job unless you pay (finance flightschool) for your own type rating and pay for hours.
My advice would be to wait at least 2.5 years and see how the market recovers.
Let me know what you do!
