Where have all the flight instructor jobs gone?
In July 2007, FTN reported that the UK was facing an unprecedented shortage of flight instructors, which industry observers at the time claimed was threatening the viability of the UK pilot training industry. Now, a little less than two years later and the UK flight training industry has changed from having an acute shortage of flight instructors to a more instructors than there are jobs, so the question is: Where have all the flight instructor jobs gone? According to a survey FTN ran during 2007, more than 90% of flight training schools in the UK were short of instructors, with some schools even having to close during certain days of the week due to a lack of staff. The consensus was that the lack of instructors was down primarily to an increased recruitment of pilots by the airline industry. As Rod Brown, Chief Flying Instructor of Denham School of Flying, said at the time: “The loss of instructors to the airlines is likely to cause problems for most flying schools, with resulting lo
