Fewer Americans are getting their pilot’s license, recreationally and commercially

Jeff (he doesn’t want to share his last name), the chief flight instructor at Northway Aviation, fires up a little Cessna 172 on their lot at Payne Field. But Northway Aviation’s 10 planes don’t see quite as much air time as they used to. According to the FAA, pilot licenses are on a pretty steep decline. Last year about 593,000 Americans had licenses – that’s 34,000 fewer than 5 years ago. Jeff says recreational flying peaked in the late 70’s and early ’80s.

“It was way cheaper back then” Jeff says. “The cost of an airplane back then was really less expensive, fuel was less expensive, insurance was less expensive. So people could do it.”

Just how expensive is it to make flying a hobby?

“Just to earn a private license you’re looking at about $10,000. And then a brand new Cessna 172 costs over $300,000. So the cost is what is driving down the people who want to do it recreationally.”

He says becoming a professional pilot for an airline is no longer a desirable career.

“To earn all your certificates, get the necessary experience to move on to an airline, or something else, is going to cost around $100,000 to $120,000. First three for our years working in the airlines, you’re only going to earn about $22,000 or $23,000 a year. It’s very poor pay. And then the lifestyle. It would have to be for somebody who is not married or who could afford to be away from home three weeks out of the month.”

But Jeff, who took up flying 15 years ago to conquer a fear of riding in airplanes, says flight schools like his are able to remain afloat because of a very specific population.

“We get a lot of foreigners just because the cost of flight training in other countries is at least double than it is to learn here. They get a visa just for flight training. They’ll come here, learn their commercial license and then go sit in the right seat of a 737 or an Airbus in a different country, where they’re earning a lot better pay than domestic airlines. We see a lot of Japan, China. There’s a big boom. Apparently there’s a huge pilot shortage there.”

Forty-one year old Randy Tonkin is a firefighter and EMT on Vashon Island who has been flying airplanes as a hobby for the past 16 years. Randy noticed the decline just by flying in and out of small, municipal airports in western Washington.

“They’re just starting to look frayed, like, there’s no money and there’s no big presence of people or activity,” says Tonkin. “It’s kind of like a neglected house. You look at the kind of people that are flying little airplanes. There are some middle aged people but mostly they are old, white men. I don’t know a lot of people my age who fly airplanes.”

Here’s how he manages to afford it:

“I have two partners in my airplane and they’re both airplane mechanics, which I thought is a really good thing, right? The three of us found a used airplane in really good condition, it’s very basic and it seemed affordable. Fifty thousand dollars is about what we paid. So I don’t drive an expensive car, instead I have a share of an airplane. That’s kind of my justification.”

Besides the cost of becoming a pilot, Jeff thinks there’s one more discouraging factor at play.

“Aviation, over the last couple decades, has really lost it’s luster,” says Jeff. “It used to be fascinating, magical. ‘Wow! I’m flying!’ Now, more people outside the aviation community view it more as a nuisance. You know, ‘I don’t want that noise overhead.'”

But for those in the aviation community, there is nothing better than flying.

“People that do it, love it,” Jeff says. “I earn very little money but I do it because I really enjoy flying and I enjoy helping people learn to fly.”