We’ve been following the debate over the existence of a pilot shortage with some interest. We think that one piece of evidence has shoved the needle to the “Yep, there is one” side of the scale so definitively that the debate is over: Flight schools are actively recruiting flight instructors and paying them a living wage. In some cases flight schools are also offering hiring bonuses.
Because the jobs new commercially rated pilots traditionally got to build time so they could eventually get hired by the airlines—night freight and check hauling—have dried up, currently the most popular way for low-time pilots to build time is to flight instruct. That being the case, we decided to take a fresh look at what is involved in obtaining the flight instructor rating—primarily time and cost factors.