Commercial Aviation Pilot?

Aviation degrees are... worthless -

Change for a degree that provides for a "plan B" in case there are no pilot jobs -

Or, God forbid, a medical problem -

Best are community college 2 years, then continue in state college - NEAR home -

For pilot training, go to a small school NEAR home, cheapest airplanes -

All licenses are the same when they say CPL, CFI or ATP -

That is what it takes to get a pilot job - a license, not a degree -

Your first job will be flight instructor... that is minimum wages requiring second job -

Good luck -

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While the airlines highly value flying experience, your assumption is incorrect. Here's the problem Caitlin.

While a college degree isn't required by the airlines, about 95%of all airline pilots hired have one and it is very hard to compete for a job without one, experience not withstanding. The first thing you must understand is that applications are a series of questions you answer that are scored by a computer, not a human, and a completed college education is weighted quite heavily in the points system used for scoring applications. There are many other heavily weighted items, but what a college degree tells and airline is that you are somewhat intelligent, probably trainable, that you can finish a difficult program of study, and that you know how to study. This last bit is extremely important because the money an airline invests in it's "new hires" is wasted if they can't hack the airlines ground school and wash out. While a college degree doesn't prove you have what it takes to do well in an airline training program, statistically there is a pretty good correlation that college grads do better than those with no college or an incomplete degree.

Now, what you hear about there being a major shortage of airline pilots isn't exactly true. This has been the standard rumor for at least the last 40 years. One reason is that if prospective students believed there wasn't going to be excellent job opportunities ahead, they wouldn't spend huge amounts of money to become pilots, so the flight schools, colleges and other interested groups have been continually crying "shortage". It's mostly self-serving propaganda, and the media sucks it up. When a news story is aired on a major news network, who have they gone to for their information? Prestigious schools like Embry-Riddle who have nothing to gain and everything to lose if they tell the story how it really is. Exaggeration is built into the system.

The fact is, except for a few brief periods where there was a lot of industry growth and a lot of hiring occurred over a short time, the historical average of growth in the airlines has been pretty slow. Steadily upward, but slow. Retirements and other attrition of pilots is also highly predictable. Yes, the rate of retirements will reach an all-time high in the next 5 to 10 years, but that is only about 14% more than the current rate. In the present economy, the airlines are having no problem at all keeping up. Any appreciable shortage will depend entirely upon future airline growth. Unless the economy returns to what it was before the current economic recession (a period of historically unusual "prosperity" that was mostly on paper), the retirements aren't going to have as big an impact as many have predicted.

A realistic analysis of the industry shows that unless the economy really heats up over the next 5 years, growth in the major airlines (i.e. the number of carriers and airplanes) is going to be flat, or even slightly negative and the so-called pilot shortage for the major airlines won't occur. The main growth is going to be in regional airlines and fractional corporate aircraft ownership. Like most other sectors of the U.S. economy, this means that most of the growth will be in lower paying flying jobs.

If I were you, I'd be earning a non-aviation degree in a field that could employ you happily and profitably if a flying career doesn't work out as planned or it takes a bad turn. Continue getting your ratings at an independent flight school and get a marketable degree that isn't dependent on you flying for a living. It's called having a back-up plan. Two skills are better than one.

The problem is pilots in the US need both a 4 year degree and an ATP ,1500 hours of flight time, for an airline to consider them!

The degree can be in business, education, finance anything but to be considered a full Bachelors is needed. So flying to get a commercial certificate and instrument ratings,then getting a type rating so a corp job is possible is expensive! Airlines want educated and experienced pilots. The FAA raised the requirements after a regional accident with low time at the controls. There may be a shortage soon but that is not today and not next year or the year after, there are many high hour pilots flipping burgers. That is why you need a "backup" degree! So yes keep going to school! Get a good job and get flight training.

You are better off finishing a 4 year degree, preferably something you could fall back on if you become unable to fly for any reason. It will not only serve you well if and when flying jobs are scarce, but a majority of the major carriers prefer to see a 4 year degree on you qualifications.

The aviation industry is still extremely tight. There are still a large number of high time pilots out there searching for meaningful employment.

I have a 16 year old that has always wanted to be a pilot. He wants to get a commercial aviation degree at UND or EKU. Do you think he wil get a flying job out of college? What degree would you suggest he pick for a double major?