As organizations such as Boeing release their forecasts for pilot demand, analyst Brian Foley cautioned that long-term factors such as automation must be taken into account. Foley, who heads his own Brian Foley Associates firm, believes breakthroughs in autonomy will dampen pilot demand beyond current projections.
In particular, he questions the Boeing forecast for 763,000 new pilots over 20 years, saying, “Not taking into account the technological progress being made in semi- and fully-autonomous flight, this number would seem to drift away from the educated part of a guess.”
Boeing's most recent projection was down 5 percent from its prior-year forecast, reflecting pilot furloughs and layoffs stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the forecast does see a rebound in pilot demand led by crew retirements and fleet growth.
“That may be, but only if the world of cockpit technology stands still for the next two decades, which would seem highly unlikely,” Foley contended, noting some aircraft already are at least partially flying autonomously.
Foley pointed to the approval of Garmin Autoland, which can automatically bring an aircraft in for a safe landing into the nearest suitable airport at the push of a button. “This is perhaps a baby step towards technology assisting a captain of larger aircraft with startup, communications, taxi, cruise, and landing—typically the copilot’s domain,” he said.
In addition, urban air mobility (UAM) and drones are pushing the autonomy envelope. “While {UAM] initial flights will feature an airman acting as more of a systems babysitter than a pilot, the goal is to eventually prove the aircraft capable of flying itself without a human at the controls.”
Military aircraft, which operate to different regulations, might be the first to downsize crew requirements, he said. But “towards the end of Boeing’s forecast period, this trend will inevitably spill over into the civil aircraft arena,” said Foley. “And it won’t take a special, clean-sheet aircraft design to accommodate this, but instead a retrofit to the existing fleet similar to what Garmin is doing with its Autoland panic button.”
Removing a copilot out of 10 percent of this future fleet through automation would reduce that need by almost 50,000 pilots, he said, estimating that Boeing’s forecast could be overstated by 10 percent or more.
“It’s never easy to forecast aviation 20 years out, let alone next year nowadays,” he conceded. “It will admittedly take years of technological advances and flight proving. However, taking into account the adoption of at least some degree of automated flight assistance over the next two decades would make Boeing’s latest pilot demand forecast seem overstated.”
