Attracting, retaining pilots an ongoing issue in Canada: industry analysts

Retirements, high training costs and poor pay are fuelling a pilot shortage in Canada, industry analysts say, at a time when travel has surged in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Air travel has rebounded since public-health restrictions put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19 grounded flights starting in 2020.

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As those restrictions were lifted, travel has surged and been met with lengthy delays at airports and flight cancellations, most notably over the winter holidays as a severe winter storm and a lack of planning and staffing contributed to the problem.

The number of commercial pilot licences issued in Canada has also fallen by more than 80 per cent since 2019.

"There's ... not enough people starting up at the bottom of the scale to get people interested in flying," John Gradek, a lecturer in aviation management at McGill University in Montreal, told CTV's Your Morning on Monday.

A 2018 report from the Canadian Council for Aviation and Aerospace found that based on demand, the industry will need as many as 7,300 more pilots by 2025.

Forced and voluntary retirements have helped drive the yearslong shortage of Canadian pilots, Gradek said, but the pandemic has exacerbated the problem even more.

A number of new low-cost carriers have also entered the marketplace while others have expanded, leading to more capacity but also a greater need for pilots.

A person can expect to pay as much as $100,000 or more to train as a pilot, Gradek said, and there is little financial aid available to students, something he believes needs to change.

"They laid off thousands of pilots across the industry and now, with the start of a number of new carriers in the Canadian marketplace and growth of existing carriers, guess what we're short and it's going to be a tough summer to try to find pilots in Canada."

Dave Boston, pilot and founder of Pilot Career Centre, told CTV News Channel last week that on top of laying off pilots, flight schools also suffered during the pandemic while more corporate jets came on the market to serve the "ultra rich."

"So every airline across Canada is hiring pilots as fast as they can and they're competing with one another for the same group of pilots," he said.

But even calling the situation a pilot shortage is oversimplifying a complicated issue, Tim Perry, president of the Canadian division of the Air Line Pilots Association, told CTV News Channel in January.

Much of what is occurring, he said, is an attraction and retention issue on the part of airlines, with many new carriers not paying enough and creating a "revolving door" where pilots leave for better jobs.

Sunwing has blamed its flight disruptions and cancellations over the holidays, in part, on the pilot shortage, pointing specifically to the federal government's decision to deny an application to hire 63 temporary foreign workers.

However, Perry has called that argument "absurd" and said any Canadian airline that compensates pilots appropriately shouldn't need to hire temporary foreign workers.

"Attracting pilots is the first step and retaining them is the second step and airlines have a responsibility to do both in order to deliver on the services that they market," Perry told CTV News Channel.

With files from CTV National News Manitoba Bureau Chief Jill Macyshon, CTVNews.ca Writer Tom Yun and The Canadian Press