Aviation has taken a big hit from the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic sweeping the world. Few people are flying, flights are cancelled, pilots and airline staff are being told to stay at home or being laid off.
“Is this an industry I want to join,” many students may be asking themselves… and it’s a fair question.
First point, it takes roughly two years to train as an airline pilot by which time, hopefully, the world will have moved on from these traumatic times. Flights will have restarted, people will be flying again for holidays and on business. Pilots will be needed.
To try and make sense of all this, FLYER/PCN‘s Ian Seager talked to Anthony Petteford, currently managing director of VA Airline Training.
Anthony has been in the pilot training industry for the past 25 years, working with such giants as CTC Aviation (now L3Harris Airline Academy) and others. He’s seen other crisis, such as the 9/11 terrorist attack which had a calamitous effect on aviation back in the early 2000s, and the financial crash of 2008. Aviation bounced back from both.
Below is a video of the interview, or you can listen to it as a podcast. As Ian says in his introduction, this is the first time FLYER/PCN has done this and it’s not as polished as we’d like. But, most importantly, the content is timely and useful.
