A secular warning for the airlines

I don’t normally comment on fundamental analysis here, despite having been a small cap analyst early in my career. However, since Mrs. Humble Student of the Markets is a pilot and has numerous contacts in the aviation industry I thought I would make an exception.

There seems to be a dearth of flight instructors in North America, largely because of the low paying nature of the job. Recently, Mrs. Humble Student of the Markets was involved in a feasibility study to bring students from China to Canada to be trained as pilots. To make a long story short, she found that there was little spare educational capacity at Canadian flight schools, largely because of an instructor shortage. The parallel situation exists in the US (and in any case the US is not suitable for foreign student flight training in the post-9/11 era.)

Why does that matter? It matters because pilots, and airline pilots in particular, need to be trained as older ones retire. This shortage of flight instructors will eventually feed into a shortage of pilots, which will shift the bargaining power of pilot unions vs. the airlines. In fact, the shortage is starting to be felt in the emerging markets, where there is not a ready supply of experienced pilots. In one instance, an airline based in an emerging market country offered a job to a recently a qualified pilot (commercial multi-engine IFR rating) as a First Officer (co-pilot) with the understanding that he would be promoted to Captain (pilot) after 500 hours of flight time. This would be the equivalent of allowing a fresh intern, one or two years out of medical school, to perform brain surgery.

Back in North America, it probably doesn’t make a huge difference in the medium term as the United States heads into recession, which would likely result in layoffs at the airlines and create a surplus of pilots. Longer term, however, the shortage of flight instructors and eventually pilots is like the plankton disappearing from the ocean – it eventually makes itself felt all the way up the food chain.