Its comes as no shock to any pilots out there the eye watering cost of aviation training is crazy. For most, that means taking on a lot of early debt, that should be repaid within at least 10 years because of how well the wages for pilots scale, but that often means lost time in acquiring a house, a new car and not to mention any student loan debt that is incurred as well. Because of this cost, there have been less and less student pilots every year, as you can see via this AOPA study: http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2010/March/15/FAA-forecasts-dwindling-student-pilot-numbers
Add into the fact that many pilots are reaching the required retirement age on the airline side, and that big vacuum in the middle, and it truly means there will be a large pilot shortage for years to come. http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/14/airlines-face-worst-pilot-shortage-since-the-1960s/As aviation becomes inevitably more expensive over time, it may still lead to a decrease in the student pilots entering training, to the point that airlines are going to have to add some more incentives to sweeten the deal of the initial cost of training, if not offer some training outright of their own.
With less students, that means that there are that many more jobs available for my future career in aviation. Since its been more of a trickle then a full bleed, that means that once I obtain an CFI, I should have just enough students to get my by, but once I get to the next step in my career, it might mean that getting a job is as simple as walking into the interview (although I do not want to at all discount how hard it is to become a pilot, merely stating how big the shortage may be). As mentioned before, this should also mean a better deal for the beginning pilot, so it can almost be said that this is one of the best careers to be going into today.
Its a good time to be a pilot.
