SINGAPORE · AIR
The pilot shortage is now an instructor shortage [飞行员短缺已变为教员短缺]
Academies across Asia and the Gulf can fund simulators faster than they can staff them, which caps throughput regardless of capital. [亚洲和海湾地区的学院融资速度快于招聘速度。]
Compiled with AI · reviewed and signed by the desk
Carriers across Asia and the Gulf have committed to fleet growth that requires roughly ten thousand additional pilots and a comparable number of licensed engineers by 2030. The financing for training capacity has largely been found. The instructors have not.
A full-flight simulator costs between twelve and eighteen million dollars and can be ordered. A type-rating instructor requires several thousand hours, an examiner authorisation and years of line experience, and cannot. The result is simulators sitting below the 3,500 annual hours that make their economics work.
The squeeze falls hardest on new academies in Africa and Central Asia, which compete for the same instructor pool against Gulf carriers paying considerably more.
Our read: watch instructor recruitment announcements rather than simulator orders. They are the honest measure of whether a training expansion is real.