The ability of airlines to attract pilots away from business aviation with lucrative contracts continues to have a deleterious effect on corporate flight department rosters. At the same time, the costs of pilot training remain a serious impediment to addressing the supply shortage, industry experts agree. But clearly, this is a good time to be a pilot.
“Whether it’s business aviation or airlines, the shortage of pilots has created challenges for the operators and opportunities for the pilots,” said David Cox, academy director for L3Harris Flight Academy in Sanford, Florida. “It’s really a very competitive landscape right now where you’ve got the airlines and the corporate operators competing with each other. Good jobs that pay well tend to be able to attract the right type of people. It is also a little bit of a lifestyle choice.
“The corporate side is a different lifestyle,” Cox continued. “Some people like it; it’s a little bit more adventuresome. You’re going to go to a lot more places. And the airline side is a little bit more predictable.”
Today’s debate over the shortage of pilots is not the first time the issue has come up. In 2012, the FAA said a looming dearth of pilots could be “painful” and that the then-new flight, duty, and rest rules would create a need for more pilots and could drive up airline staffing demands. This ultimately would impact the Part 135 charter segment vying for the same pilots.
In a 2018 hearing of the U.S. House Small Business Committee, an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University official said that 97 percent of the nation’s business aviation community were small- to midsize businesses and other entities such as nonprofits. “Without a source of pilots, maintenance technicians, flight attendants, schedulers/dispatchers, and trained support personnel, the economic engine of business aviation will be significantly impacted,” he warned.
At the same hearing, the NBAA explained that in a recent member survey, most respondents indicated that they were experiencing difficulties in retaining pilots and that fewer replacement candidates were available. “More than 60 percent of operators surveyed experienced pilot turnover since 2015, with 43 percent of pilot departures from business aviation going to the commercial airlines,” the association told the committee.
More recently, a 2023 UK government-sponsored report entitled “Options for Addressing the Cost of Pilot Training,” prepared by Systra Group and Northpoint Consultants, found that with a high--demand, low-supply scenario, the shortage of business aviation pilots could amount to more than 7,500 in 2026 and 19,900 in 2041.
Scheduling Stability
Interchangeability is a salient industry factor that often works in commercial airlines’ favor when they’re trying to woo pilots from business aviation. “I’ve been a Gulfstream and an airline pilot; I’ve flown Airbuses and Gulfstreams,” Cox said. “Ultimately, the cockpit disciplines are very similar.”
At airlines, pilots obtain their schedules a month in advance, he explained. “You’re going to know where you’re going to go. Your job is to show up and fly the airplane with a certain level of professionalism and discipline. However, you’ve got dispatchers that are planning the flight and a lot of mission support.
“On the corporate side, it is very much planning your flight, and working on getting your landing permits. You need to understand the rules of the countries that you’re operating into and out of. You’re really planning that mission. You’re responsible for your curfews, for understanding where you can and can’t go, and a lot of times fixing the things that need to be fixed.”
Cox believes the routine nature of the airlines can be more attractive for some.
Given the current shortages, only 10 percent of the pilot roster is generally destined for business aviation careers, with the rest allocated to scheduled.
“Airlines need so many pilots, you’re going to see probably 90 percent of graduates head to the airlines,” Cox said. “A lot of people don’t fully appreciate and understand how to get into the business aviation side, but it’s a very enjoyable and rewarding career. That’s one of the areas that I’m working on here—to help explain and explore that as a career opportunity for people that are coming to the academy.”
Gregory Newman, v-p at Wilmington, Delaware-based PilotsGlobal, said business and corporate aviation are trying to work through the global pilot shortage as airlines require more pilots to fully staff their aircraft. Industry averages point to more than 15 pilots needed per major airline airplane in the U.S., for example, compared with less than three pilots per airplane in the corporate aviation sector.
“The shortage in pilots needed remains as there is competition from scheduled aviation luring experienced corporate pilots over to mainline, with benefits and brand names that business aviation has difficulty competing with—all else being equal—and occasionally even exceeding those offered by the corporate sector,” Newman explained.
“The U.S. is far and away the global leader in hiring opportunities as well as where corporate aviation pilots are interested in working, although we’re still seeing a shortage of multiple thousands of pilots compared to seats available.”
Pilot Predictions
The lack of uniformity in forecasts is another sign of the febrile state of the market today. Although it does not specify which branch of the industry they will end up in, L3Harris expects 350,000 new pilots to be required by 2030. At the Paris Air Show, CAE said it was predicting a lower figure, 232,000 pilots, of whom 32,000 would go into business aviation by 2032. Aimed at the wider scheduled market, Boeing’s even broader forecast points to a requirement for 602,000 new pilots by 2041.
Newman cited a recent market report as evidence that the U.S. will remain the center of attention. “Forecasts today—including a CAGR of 16.2 percent over the next decade—focus on the U.S. being the focal point of growth,” he said. “The PilotsGlobal website hosts almost 600 business aviation vacancies, with over 75 percent of those being based in the U.S.”
Of the current vacancies on PilotsGlobal, more than two-thirds are for captains, he further noted. “This was to be expected given that the overall industry shortage has caused many pilots-in-command [PICs] to be poached by mainliners, with a rippling effect impacting others down the line in business aviation.”
Newman said two types of pilots in particular gravitated to the corporate side. First, because corporate aviation does not impose a blanket mandatory retirement requirement for those operating under Part 91, those interested in flying longer could stay in their cockpit seats.
Second, U.S. citizens who had worked as pilots overseas had to restart career paths toward the bottom of the ladder due to seniority schemes and FAA guidelines when coming into an American-based airline. It is easier for them to slot into business aviation positions where a lot of the rules and regulations were not nearly as strict and hierarchical while they can keep a high quality of life and benefits similar to those offered by scheduled carriers.
Newman said pilots interested in working in business aviation would have a vastly different experience than those in the commercial aviation: more flexible work-life balance with less hierarchy; on-call times to contend with; home-based work; a lesser overall workload demand that can permit more family time; and lower entry barriers and regulatory requirements.
“For example, there is no ATP requirement by regulation as opposed to the more restrictive commercial aviation sector, allowing first officers to start earning meaningful compensation faster,” he said. “Furthermore, it allows faster time to transition and build turbine and oftentimes jet time, which is valuable for one’s career progression.”
A lower flight-time requirement for someone to get started as a first officer is important. “For example, one can generally get a seat with 1,000 hours in business aviation whereas that pilot would need 1,500 hours minimum—unless they are former military or aviation college graduates eligible for Restricted ATP—to be a first officer at a commercial airline,” Newman said.
Business aviation jobs were seen as more stable and secure and slightly less competitive than positions at publicly traded airlines. “The perks and benefits in business aviation are catching up with those offered by airlines,” Newman said.
PilotsGlobal sees the average business aviation PIC salary in the range of around $160,000 to $220,000, although this does not include additional benefits offered by employers, which can add insurance packages, relocation assistance, paid medicals, and ongoing training.
“Most requirements for PICs...vary from 2,000 to 3,500 hours at the top end of the broadest range, excluding the highest-end roles,” he said.
“Broadly speaking,” Newman said, “business aviation roles approaching $300,000 would require the pilot to have over 5,000 to even 6,000 hours of total time or a decade of experience in corporate aviation, at least 3,000 turbine, 3,000 PIC. We have not seen that many roles, or candidates, that meet all of these criteria.”
PilotGlobal, meanwhile, sees first-year PIC salaries at North American airlines average at $238,000. However, at 12 years, those salaries are more in line with top-end business aviation salaries at an average of $280,00.
“With our cadets here at the academy, we spend time talking to them personality--wise about where they want to go,” Cox said. “We’ve got a lot of different partnerships with scheduled airlines, low-cost carriers, and charter and cargo airlines. Then you start looking at the corporate operators like the XOJets, the Vistas, the NetJets, and even some of the large corporate flight departments.”
Cox added that once students arrive at L3Harris Flight Academy, “I’ll talk to them about the different opportunities that are out there. We’re working more of that as we start to develop better relationships with the corporate operators so we’re able to offer our cadets another gateway or opportunity to launch their pilot careers.
“When you see corporate and charter operators with airplanes sitting on the ground because of lack of crews, it’s happening now. When you see airlines pull service out of certain cities because of a lack of crews, that’s happening now. The current pilot shortage is real.” z