The Post-Covid Future of U.S. Aviation
Happy 245th Birthday, America!
Above: Let the fireworks begin! On initial approach, with a front seat to the show! Thanks to Jumpseater Phillis for this video!
As we learned this past year during the Covid pandemic, the airline industry is an enormously volatile business. It’s always the first to lose in an economic downturn, and the last to recover.
Since Tony Jannus conducted the United States’ first scheduled commercial airline flight on January 1, 1914 for the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line, the airline industry as a whole has lost more money than it has made.
And, yet, good ol’ “Yankee Innovation”—and human ingenuity the world ’round—marches on!
So, what does the future hold for U.S., and World, Aviation?
In a nutshell…
—Super Sonic Transport
—Sustainability
—Net-zero carbon emissions
—Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)
—NYC-LHR in 3.5 hours
—Moon and Mars in ?
—Jetlag like you’ve never experienced!
BOOM! Back to the Aviation Future...
By now, you’ve no doubt heard the headline: “United tentatively orders 15 Boom Supersonic SST airliners”
The article goes on to say that United and Boom Technologies will “work together … to be net-zero carbon from day one, optimized to run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)…slated to roll out in 2025, fly in 2026 and expected to carry passengers by 2029”…and “will also work together to accelerate production of greater supplies of SAF.”
But, before SSTs, SpaceX and Musk to Mars, what lies in the near future for our up ‘n coming aviators?
Is the “Looming Pilot Shortage,” the standard, cynical pilot joke for the past 30 years, finally—FINALLY!—looming?
The GOOD NEWS
Due to the Covid pandemic, thousands of experienced airline pilots took early retirement. Now, with aviation travel rocketing back, airlines have been caught with their uniform britches down, creating a vacuum that will inevitably suck “minor-league” pilots up into the majors, and ultimately into the left seat.
The BAD NEWS
Some of the “Looming Pilot Shortage” has been self-inflicted. Bowing to political pressure, the FAA has slapped band-aid fixes on fundamental issues—chief among them, minimum pilot experience requirements. On paper, this seems safer. More importantly, it sounds good to the public. But this arbitrary cosmetic fix will prove to be woefully short-sighted. Higher requirements for even the most rudimentary flying job—along with a pilot paycheck that’s plummeted 60% or more in the past 3 decades—have already created a vacuum that is, at least initially, monumentally hard to fix.
The UGLY NEWS
The pilots’ age-old Catch 22 paradox—you can’t GET the flight time without HAVING the flight time, has been compounded by these ill-guided new regulations. As a result, those with money to burn have an even greater advantage, essentially “buying” their way into the cockpit.
And . . .
The POSSIBLY GOOD NEWS
Ultimately, U.S. airlines may be forced to start their own pilot training programs, a la Lufthansa, JetBlue, et al—and perhaps even with government subsidy. But, that will depend on public sentiment.
Recruited out of college, the best of the best future pilots will have their careers mapped out for them. This removes much of the insane volatility, possibly ups the average quality of recruits, and perhaps will even level the playing field a smidgen. Moreover, it may finally put some upward pressure on the pilot’s free-falling paycheck.
A Word about Hi-Tech
“Ladies and gentlemen, you are flying in a fully automated Airbus A9000. There are no human pilots on board, only computers. Nothing can go wrong . . . click! Go wrong . . . click! . . . Go wrong.”
Future cockpits will be manned with one pilot, and one dog. The pilot’s job is to feed the dog, and the dog’s job is to bite the pilot if he tries to touch anything.
Like the “Looming Pilot Shortage” wisecrack, the above two jokes have circulated among pilots for decades—albeit with a bit of nervous trepidation.
—BUT—
While drones have been used to spectacular success on the battlefield, and are poised to aid Big Brother in watching over you—curtains drawn or not—they are still by and large operated remotely by human “pilots.”
While I’m a huge fan of high tech, and self-driving cars are already here, I believe we still have decades to go before computer processing approaches anywhere near human capacity for judgement in the sky.
As I said in my blog post, Busted Aviation Myths: Otto is My Copilot, the onboard Autopilot is nothing more than a 3D Cruise Control. It processes, but it can’t think.
The Future of Air Navigation
It’s already here!
ADS-B is already here. Satellite-based, rather than ground-based, ADS-B is revolutionizing the industry plagued today by traffic delays and inefficient routes. Moreover, it adds reliability, robustness and safety to navigating in remote corners of the globe.
As a kid, I marveled at the spectacle that was Stanley Kubrick’s movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, from the novel by Arthur C. Clarke. I was awestruck!
I was especially enchanted by the space shuttle Orion—flown by Pan Am—which launched from earth and docked with a space station in low orbit, to the tune of J Strauss’ The Blue Danube.
I daresay I dreamed from that day on to pilot that very craft by the end of my career. Sadly, however, 2001 has come and long gone, and the Space Shuttles have all been parked, mothballed in museums like so many WWII warbirds.
So, while Kubrick & Clarke’s prediction nailed the space shuttle dead on, it appears that the rest of their utopian vision of space travel was off by about a century.
For me, with the finish line in sight, it looks like the closest I’ll come to that futuristic cockpit is my still-wonderful Airbus A321. Or, perhaps, I’ll cross the finish line from the left seat of the 787 Dreamliner…
As for our Next Gen up ‘n coming pilots, who knows what the future holds? SSTs? Sub-orbits? Moon and Mars? Only the sky—make that space—is the limit!
All due to that “Yankee Ingenuity” and worldwide Human Innovation!
I say again,
Happy 245th Birthday, USA!
Till the next post…
This is Cap'n Aux
