It is going to be a Grade A Cluster with candidates not making the grade. Or, unqualified pilots being put in charge of planes and people’s lives.
I suspect what you will really see is this:
1. Lots of washouts
2. The subpar candidates (who make it through flight school but are still not great) will end up doing the commuter flights for many (many) years. I have a friend who is a pilot with Delta; he is a very good pilot and still had to do that. It was pretty rough and the pay was low, but eventually he got tapped to fly the bigger jets. People who don’t have their eyes-on-the-prize can get frustrated and eventually quit.
3. Many years spent as a co-pilot before being in command.
4. Another factor is the increasing level of automation and AI in the cockpit. The trend is that it will only get more sophisticated and reliale. It has also been suggested that, in another 20 years, these planes will be totally automated with the pilot just being there for backup. For the bigger planes, its pretty close to that right now.
5. The real trouble with be if the tech fails and the SHTF. Then, yes, people will die because the pilot won’t effectively react. But the tech is pushing us in that direction anyway, even for competent pilots. I suspect if there is an accident where the planes crashes & burns, they will blame the tech, not the pilot.
Or, unqualified pilots being put in charge of planes and people’s lives.
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Not my life. I’ll never fly United or Delta again under any circumstances.