The Decline of General Aviation

In the last thirty or so years, the number of personal entertainment options accessible to most people has exploded leaving general aviation behind as a relic of a past generation.  People now have an almost endless list of ways to keep themselves entertained with physical entertainment such as the many water sports options, to winter sports, motorcycles, quads, dirt bikes, and the myriad of organized sports.  Physical entertainment comes in many other shapes and forms including such things as mini golf, an arcade room, gun ranges, hunting, fishing, golf, wine tasting etc.  We have a lot of entertainment options to choose from.  And that’s not even getting into the world of digital entertainment and the recent explosion of personal devices such as the iPad which has even further revolutionized the amount of distraction and entertainment available at ones finger tips.  These days, people have a lot of options when it comes to personal entertainment and fun.

With so many entertainment options available, it is easy to see how flying has fallen to the bottom of the stack only rarely being chosen as the primary source of weekend fun.  Rewind to a hypothetical time in the 1960s where someone had extra time and money and was looking for somewhere to use both.  Motorcycles at that time were still largely thought of as sort of a fringe activity with few family men taking part, especially as engine and safety gear technology were still extremely primitive.  The idea of a personal watercraft was only just being thought up with the first primitive prototype being built in 1965, certainly still a long way from “a showroom near you”.   Maybe in an environment where so many fewer options existed, the fairly developed world of general aviation would captivate the imagination of so many. 

This was also an era where aviation was still somewhat new and fascinating and many people had never had the opportunity to fly in an airliner.  With limited access to commercial travel due to steep ticket prices and fewer cities served, airline travel was still over a decade away from being common place.  So imagine the excitement that being able to fly your own aircraft must have provided. The ability to take you, your friends, and family on an actual trip somewhere would provide both excitement and some level of prestige.  Additionally, the price of gas at that time was cheap enough that the cost of fuel was not likely to be a large factor in planning a trip where now fuel prices are increasingly becoming a barrier to entry.  

In that era, it’s easy to imagine how general aviation could have been a top option for any person looking for an additional element of fun and adventure in their life.  It is also easy to see how general aviation may have been accessible to a larger group of buyers.  While I don’t have the numbers for 1965, I do know that a Cessna 172 – your bread and butter airplane cost $8,700 new in 1956.  In a 1958 report produced by the U.S. Department of Commerce titled “Current Population Reports on Consumer Income for 1956” reports that “The average income of all families was estimated at $4,800, or about 8 percent higher than in 1955”.  So in 1956 the average airplane cost LESS than double the average family income from the same year.  Let’s compare that to current times.  Cessna still sells the same Cessna 172 almost unchanged since the 1950s and 60s (another issue altogether). 

Let’s compare current selling price to current median income.  According to Cessna’s price sheet for the Cessna 172 which is available on their website, a new entry level Cessna 172 with no added features costs $274,900.  A quarter million dollars will buy you a very basic marginally capable general aviation aircraft.  Remember we are comparing new aircraft in the 1950s to new aircraft today.  I’m sure there were used airplanes then as there are now but that is not the point.  The U.S. Census Bureau now produces what they call the “Table 697” which is their report on median household income and reports median household income for all families to be $60,088 in 2009.  In 1956 the average household earned roughly 55% of the cost of an airplane in one year.  In 2009, the average family only earns about 22% of the amount needed to purchase the same airplane.  

Not only does general aviation have to compete for the consumers attention in a field of ever increasing options, but for every year that passes, aviation becomes exponentially more expensive while offering no more reward than they did in the 1950s with entry level airframe technology for 4 seat aircraft largely unchanged in 40 years.  But there’s even more going against aviation as a source of pleasure and entertainment.  

A number of changes in our society have created an assumption of instant gratification, where games can be installed and played almost instantly on an iPad, where a person can walk into a showroom and later that day be enjoying their personal watercraft out on the lake, where information is instantaneous and all communication is limited to 140 characters, JK!  Life moves fast these days. People no longer assume that you will work in a career only slowly working up the company ladder, rewards should be in the now and anything that takes time is forgotten.  Who will be willing to spend the time and effort it takes to become a good pilot if their only aspiration is to have something to have fun with on the weekend.  Few can justify shilling out 10k for the pilot club entry fee that looks trivial when you come to the next step of trying to purchase a basic entry level airplane.  It’s just not worth it to most.  Even to those who would really love to fly and find themselves wishing on a regular basis that they could.  

The problem of decreasing pilot population however runs even deeper than the fact that flying competes against so many other entertainment options.  It also has roots that connect to the world of airline flying.  I took my first flight in 2005 and after a few pauses and setbacks, earned my license in 2007.  I did all this while going to college; in fact I didn’t graduate until the spring of 08.  I mention this because while I wanted to be able to “fly around”, a major justification for the flight training was that it could lead to an airline flying career.  I may have been irrational enough to get my license without the airline element, but certainly the airline possibility helped others understand how a poor college student could be taking out additional loans and diverting time away from college studies to become a pilot.  If it was hard to justify the 10K to become a pilot, it has become almost impossible to justify the remainder of training needed to become an airline pilot candidate. 

I graduated in 08 and planned to jump right into the fast paced and expensive ATP program, unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately?) my college debt and lack of income or willing donors (ha! yeah right) kept me from qualifying for the flight loan.  I have since found a good job and reduced college debt and married a wonderful wife. Since then I have tried to get comprehensive flight training financing on two separate occasions with the combined income and credit of two full time earners and essentially had the creditors laughing in our face because we don’t have equity in our home.  I am now largely repressing my desire to become an airline pilot, and certainly cooler heads wouldn’t even consider a career that is seniority based, yet also completely unstable, paying dirt for entry wages, yet also requiring 80 – 100K to get in.  So I have ended up a GA pilot by accident because I planned on becoming an airline pilot but couldn’t make it.  But, and here’s the point.  I have at least a handful of friends and family members who have at one point or another considered an airline career excitedly looking forward to starting flight training but each turned away. 

After learning more about the cost of training and the lack of financing options, along with the terrible schedules of regional pilots combined with even worse pay, combined with a seniority system that could be ruinous on a person’s career if their chosen airline collapses, the erosion of retirement benefits . . .and the list goes on, each person has ended up going another direction likely to never become a pilot at all.  I am a GA pilot by default because I jumped right in and started my training before I finished college.  Had I waited until I graduated I would likely not be a pilot today as other careers are so much easier to get into and most offer significantly more entry level pay and the cost of flight training is hard to justify for purely enjoyment purposes. 

So why is general aviation gasping for fresh air? Its gasping for air because the industry let itself become a dinosaur and irrelevant in today’s fast paced digital world. It is an outdated way to have fun in the pull your hair back world of personal motorsports that make flying a plane seem sedate and boring if you are just looking for a quick thrill.  It is irrelevant because a career structure where salary and position growth is completely determined by seniority is so outdated that when I once tried to justify its merits in a college class, everyone literally thought I was kidding.  It is a joke.  The airline pilot career is a dinosaur.  The airplanes that GA pilots fly carry engines and airframe technology from the 1960s (don’t tell me about cirrus and all those new composite airplanes – they are over 500k for basic models and may as well be a jet – no regular person can afford one so it is pointless for GA).  

Flying is a joy, an amazing experience that I cherish every time I go up.  I love flying and encourage anyone interested to go for it.  Yet I understand that for most people, the enjoyment provided does not justify the initial and continuing cost.  I think a lot about starting a flying club for those who would love to fly, but would balk at the idea of spending 10 – 50k entry fees to become part of a modern day flying club.  I think there are ownership models that would keep flying accessible but most clubs recognize that flying is no longer a middle class game (though it could be), so why even bother marketing to them.    There are ways to organize not for profit clubs that help keep the fun in flying while also keeping the cost down, but most clubs still require a hefty initial investment.  I have even thought that maybe I should put a low cost flying club together just so friends and family who would like to fly have an option.  But I am worried that general aviation flying may be a thing of the past. 

To bring interest back to general aviation, these changes would need to occur:  

• The gap between median income and aircraft price needs to narrow

• More flight training financing options

• Flight training needs to cater to a fast paced digitally connected crowd

•  The airline career needs to become a draw to college aged professionals which would    require:

o   Better and more options in comprehensive financing for career pilot training

o   Initial pay that reflects the challenge of attaining the position, as well as the responsibility of flying an aircraft full of people and goods at 500 miles per hour.

o   A career growth path that doesn’t start back at square one if your airline collapses

o   Recognition that the schedule of a regional airline pilot is no longer a draw when more and more 9-5 careers that pay competitive wages allow employees to work from home or work some sort of flex schedule.

o   A recognition that the major pipeline to an airline career is no longer from the military, and that civilians are not used to being told where to live and having that living situation changed on a regular basis.  Airlines treat pilots like pawns – in an era where corporations provide all sorts of incentives to keep good talent, college grads are not considering an airline career with tunnel vision, airlines will have to compete with well-paying private sector jobs in order to attract and keep top talent.  And that will start by treating pilots as a valued member of the company and offer pay and incentives that rival good private sector jobs.  And that goes for regional flying as well since many pilots now recognize that a majority will never have the opportunity to move beyond the regional cockpit.  

• Pilots, myself included need to do a better job of creating a community, similar to how motorcycling groups exist for every type of rider.  Support groups for maintenance, riding groups, religious riding groups, and most groups are not started for profit, but for mutual enjoyment of a sport.  It’s few and far between that you will find a flying club where the founders are not trying to get rich from your membership. 

So maybe I need to start a flying group that that has a relationship with a bank to provide reasonable flight training loans for a fast, fixed cost, and predictable flight training program, that at its core is there to create a fun and inexpensive flying option, which creates a friendly support network, which is digitally connected by social media.  And as for the airline problem, the airline pilot career needs a complete overhaul – something that is sadly about as likely to happen as the world ending in December of 2012. I think there will always be people interested in flying, and willing to spend their fun money on the activity.  But the aviation community needs to adjust the way it does business in an effort to not simply train pilots well, but also keep their well trained pilots engaged and involved and most importantly, keep flying accessible and affordable for young pilots.