By 2036, Civil Aviation will Need More than 600,000 Pilots

Air traffic growth will force airlines worldwide to appoint more than 600,000 pilots by 2036. However, this emerges as a challenge in terms of ageing of the population, the International Civil Aviation Organization (IAEA) said. The number of passenger flights and passengers doubles every 15 years, but the workforce in the sector is shrinking, said Secretary-General of the organization, Fan Liu, speaking to the International Relations Council in Montreal, Canada. She highlighted the inevitable ageing of the population, the decline in birth rates and other factors such as the fact that future talents are attracted by high-tech sectors. All this means that civil aviation needs to make more efforts to attract and retain the skilled workers they need in the coming decades, Mrs Liu warned. The IAEA, a UN agency, believes that by 2036 at least 620,000 pilots will be needed to fly aeroplanes with or with more than 100 seats worldwide.