Civilian flight training schools are the backbone of the aviation industry, providing the skilled pilots, technicians and aerospace professionals necessary to staff both the commercial airline industry and small aeronautical businesses like flight touring companies, charter services and commercial cargo carriers. Civilian flight schools also train many pilots for medevac services.
The U.S. armed forces used to supply two thirds of all the civilian pilots in the commercial airline industry, who would take almost-guaranteed jobs after they were discharged from the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard or, of course, the U.S. Air Force, having accumulated far more than the minimum hours required to fly and usually having flown military aircraft technologically on par with commercial airplanes or helicopters.
With fewer military conflicts and a smaller military, the number of ex-military pilots is now down to one third of the total, with the majority now getting their experience at civilian training shcools like Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott. ERUA and other civilian flight schools supply the civilian aviation sector with the pilots and aeronautical ground crew professionals needed for both commercial and non-commercial aviation.
Civilian flight schools ensure a consistent and trained workforce in an industry that would otherwise face staffing shortages, particularly with increased demand for air travel and gradual technological advances.
The number of flights globally by the airline industry has increased steadily since the early 2000s, reaching a peak of 38.9 million in 2019. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic response, the number of flights dropped to 18.3 million in 2020, mostly in the first half of the year before lockdowns were implemented, and at the tail end of the year when many countries resumed flights. The number of flights has steadily and sharply increased since.
It was forecast to reach 38.7 million in 2024 and this year will top the 2019 peak.
Older generations of pilots are also retiring, especially those who were former military pilots trained during the era of the first Gulf War. Veterans who flew in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now providing airlines with military pilots, but they are simply not enough for the civilian aviation industry, which relies on highly-trained pilots, air traffic controllers, flight engineers, mechanics and other technical experts from civilian flight schools. The Federal Aviation Administration has forecast a need for more than 200,000 new pilots over the next two decades — far more than U.S. military veterans can fill — so civilian flight training schools are even more necessary to meet this demand and ensure a sustainable, high-quality aviation industry, so we can fly to our vacation destinations, take flights to see family members across the country or get airlifted to a hospital after an accident.
If you buy merchandise online and have it shipped from overseas in three days, it’s not coming by cargo ship; instead, it’s often being flown by pilots trained at civilian flight schools.
That’s how companies like Federal Express, Amazon, DHL and UPS or the U.S. Postal Service get products to your door in three days.
While Verde Valley residents may bristle at the flights to the Cottonwood Airport from the Prescott campus of ERAU, remember that these pilots are not showboats buzzing houses for the LOLs, they are students learning how to fly and how to fly well so that they can fill this need. Tomorrow, next week or years from now, you’ll take a flight back east, or up north, to a West Coast beach or to the dream vacation destination you’ve spent years saving up for, and your pilot, unbeknownst to you, will be an ERAU graduate who once flew in the skies of the Verde Valley learning how to be a pilot.
Just keep that in mind the next time a small plane with ERAU markings makes some noise when landing at the 96-year-old Cottonwood Airport.
