Part of a bigger picture of a demographic shift plus the hideous cost of flight training in Australia has driven money and people out of flying training. All Australian airlines have failed to recognize the demographic shift and have trended towards more numerous and smaller aircraft in the quest for frequency, which, you guessed it, needs more pilots per available seat km.
Many overseas airlines are offering fly-in fly-out contracts to bases in Asia and the Middle East to attract Australian based pilots (and keep their families in Australia while working overseas) thus destroying the only competitive advantage that Australian airlines such as Qantas and Virgin have - the Australian residential lifestyle. So wages pressure will be building up in the pilot group.
This is going to be an epic labour shortage for airlines from Rex through to the major Australian airlines such as Qantas and Virgin. All airlines are already coping with pilot shortages and rostering tic-tac toe and flight cancellations to avoid their remaining pilots going out of hours.
Dosen't matter how new and shiny the capital equipment/aircraft are - without pilots they will be sitting on the ground for more hours per day. And just to complete the picture the price of jet fuel is on the rise again....
VAH Price at posting:
28.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
