2024-08-04
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In 2016, Chen Fulai, who was only 21 years old, decided to "rise to the top". After graduating from a second-tier university with a major in information engineering, he gave up his job with a monthly salary of 8,000 yuan and switched to learning flying. In the following years, he learned to fly in Florida, the United States, and also flew a trainer plane in the severe cold of Inner Mongolia. Hundreds of hours of flight training made him very close to the position of a civil aviation pilot.
However, eight years later, in 2023, Chen Fulai became an online car-hailing driver.
Over the past few decades, China's civil aviation industry has continued to prosper, with more routes, more airline fleets, and more students enrolled, until the COVID-19 pandemic brought everything to a halt. Southern Weekend reporters interviewed 14 people related to the civil aviation industry, including captains, co-pilots, flight students, aviation school graduates, and civil aviation experts. They have all experienced or observed that the civil aviation industry has had a "backlog" of flight students in recent years. Before the pandemic, there were signs that students were forced to stop learning to fly during the pandemic, and after the pandemic, there were still students waiting in line to take up their posts. There is no official information on the number and scale, but the problem is often seen on social media shared by industry insiders.
However, in the view of Qi Qi, an associate professor at Guangzhou Civil Aviation Vocational and Technical College, backlogs do not mean surpluses. "There needs to be a period of relief. In the medium and long term, China's civil aviation demand for pilots is still long-term and sustained."
In the civil aviation pilot training system, Chen Fulai is like an "order". Undergraduate graduates who pass the physical examination and political review first sign an employment contract with the airline, and enter the flight school to learn to fly as an airline employee. The high cost of commissioned training is paid by the airline. This is called a "big graduation reform" student.
This closed system, which originally operated efficiently, encountered employment problems one after another when the supply and demand relationship changed.
In June 2023, after graduating from the aviation school after studying flying for more than six years, Chen Fulai did not return to the airline to report, but went directly back to Zhuhai to drive an online taxi.
More than a year later, Chen Fulai has become a fairly skilled driver. He told the Southern Weekend reporter that he can earn more than 10,000 yuan a month, which is a good income level in this second-tier southern city. At the end of the day, 12 hours of driving time is the norm, sometimes even 16 hours. In July 2024, when he agreed with the Southern Weekend reporter for an interview in the morning, Chen Fulai once thought it was too late because he usually went out at 6 o'clock in the morning and charged the car for half an hour.
In fact, a month ago, the airline company that had signed the contract with him urged him to go to work. He explained that he did not do his job properly for a year, saying that he did it on purpose. He noticed that the number of aircraft of the airline company had dropped significantly, which meant fewer flying opportunities for newcomers.
For example, a colleague graduated two months later than him and immediately returned to the airline, but the airline did not arrange for him to complete the necessary training process before serving as a co-pilot. Instead, he was asked to do two ground jobs first. Chen Fulai estimated that if he returned, he would not be able to start the job process until 2026 at the earliest. Before that, he would probably be arranged to rotate in different departments on the ground.
In 2018, he experienced this once, doing jobs like filling out forms, picking up takeouts, and moving treadmills. The colleague mentioned above also does similar work, earning only 4,000 to 5,000 yuan a month. Chen Fulai already has a child who is a few months old. "(The airline's location) rents a house for 2,000 yuan, how do you survive?"
So he delayed his return to the company by not taking one exam. It was not until June 2024 that he took the last exam at the urging of the airline, and then temporarily suspended his labor contract with the airline. This means that the airline does not have to pay him for the time being, and will resume the contract in the future if necessary.
Xu Shou, who works as a co-pilot at another airline, began to hear about the "backlog" of trainees in 2021. By the beginning of 2024, he heard more about this. More than a year ago, he started to run a civil aviation self-media. After accumulating a certain number of fans, trainees began to complain about the difficulty of getting a job in the background.
Most of these "traffic jams" occurred in small private airlines, and the problems were varied. Some students were terminated, such as Qin Tian. At the end of 2021, he was still in the commercial pilot license training stage. The contracted private airline that was supposed to bear all his training costs suddenly changed its mind and asked him to pay 300,000 yuan before he could continue training. After several negotiations, the two parties finally reached an agreement to terminate the contract: Qin Tian left at the cost of leaving his flight technical files in the original airline, and he did not have to repay the training fees already paid by the airline. This means that he has to give up learning to fly completely, because he must take the above files away if he switches to a new airline and continues to learn to fly at public expense.
Some trainees were told that they had to wait in line for three years before they could return to the airline to start the on-the-job process. "If it's delayed, many problems will arise, which will make the trainees very uncomfortable," said Xu Shou.
Wang Kuang is very familiar with this uncomfortable feeling. In 2018, after graduating from high school, he enrolled in the Civil Aviation Flight University of China (hereinafter referred to as CAFU), taking another path of "order-based" training: "cultivation students". Such students are mainly high school graduates, usually recruited by civil aviation colleges according to the needs of airlines. After admission, they will sign a contract with the airline, and the cost of flying lessons will also be borne by the airline. In addition, there are also students recruited directly by colleges and universities, and the colleges bear their training costs. After completing their flying lessons, they will be "sold" to airlines.
Wang Kuang is the latter, and he majored in flight technology. In this training system, Wang Kuang's career path is to be a pilot or instructor. However, after enrolling, Wang Kuang failed to sign a contract with an airline, and later failed to find a teaching job at the school.
At the end of 2022, Wang Kuang communicated with the school's flight recruitment department about employment issues. The latter told him that the airlines still had a lot of unabsorbed pilots and there were few recruitment needs, so he had to wait for the school to connect with the airlines to arrange interviews.
Wang Kuang said that in the past two years, some airlines did come to the school for interviews, but he was not selected. He once passed the interview for a private aviation school to recruit instructors, but the school required him to pay 600,000 to 700,000 yuan for flying lessons. Wang Kuang had difficulty raising the funds and had to give up the job.
He was born in a rural area in the southwest. His parents make a living by farming and his family is not well off. After graduating in 2023, he cannot wait indefinitely and can only find a job to make a living. However, he found that his undergraduate degree in flight technology is not useful after leaving the civil aviation industry. At present, Wang Kuang drives a van to transport goods and earns four to five thousand yuan a month. He said that sometimes he dreams that he is driving a training plane.
On July 22, 2024, a Southern Weekend reporter called the administrative duty room of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, hoping to learn about the backlog of flight students at the school. A staff member replied that the school was not accepting interviews for the time being.
Many pilot trainees do not find it difficult to get a job until they are close to starting work. They discover the signs as early as when they are learning to fly.
Xu Shou explained that when he was learning to fly, the teaching mode was generally called the "2+2" mode, which is also used by most schools to train "trained students", that is, theoretical learning in the first two years and flight training in the last two years. The time varies slightly according to different schools and classes. After that, the flight trainees will receive training on the aircraft type they will use in the future at the airline and pass the exam, and get an endorsement on their flight license, and they will be qualified to serve as co-pilots.
Zhang Dingbo is an undergraduate student majoring in flight technology at an aviation college in 2020. He had signed a contract with a state-owned airline when he enrolled and is now approaching graduation. He recalled that in September 2022, most students of the same level had completed theoretical studies and were waiting for flight training. Prior to this, the airline, the alma mater and the cooperative aviation school planned to assess the trainees. However, the epidemic situation soon became severe, and the airlines and aviation schools in different regions from the school were unable to send people, and the assessment was postponed. At the end of November, the trainees went home.
Zhang Dingbo said that he was not notified during the Chinese New Year in 2023 that the assessment would be conducted online. He made almost no preparations during the holidays and failed the first assessment. He remembered that there were more than 30 trainees at the time, but only a dozen were sent for flight training in the first batch. In April, he passed the second assessment and was able to be sent for training in May. In this way, he was delayed by nearly half a year for this item alone.
Qin Tian's training was also delayed for several months. He recalled that he was supposed to take the theoretical test in early 2020 and could go to the training after passing it. However, the test was cancelled at that time, and he did not go until May of that year.
In fact, a delay of several months to half a year is not considered long. A flight trainee told Southern Weekend that his training time was delayed by about 10 months compared to normal circumstances.
The backlog is not limited to the training period. A flight trainee from the class of 2017 recalled that he started training at the end of 2019, but did not officially start flight training until July 2020. Flight trainee Chen Xie also encountered such problems. After graduating from college, he switched to studying flying at a private aviation school. Around October 2020, he went to a flight base in Shandong for flight training. If everything goes well, he can complete the exam within a year, but this will not actually end until August 2022.
Chen Xie said that many students suddenly flocked to the base. Some students were originally scheduled to train in foreign aviation schools, but they could not go abroad and had to temporarily change to training in China. For a time, many domestic aviation schools became crowded. In the flight base group where Chen Xie was, one instructor normally only needed to lead three students, and each student could fly for two hours a day. In fact, his instructor led nine students, and they could only learn to fly for half an hour to one hour every two to three days, which greatly delayed the progress.
"Like an airplane landing, if you practice it a few more times (in the same training session), the coach may think that you landed very smoothly and be willing to take you down. But because the intervals are long and you are not familiar with it, you can only waste time on landing," said Chen Xie.
"We start from the interview at school, then wait for the flight at the aviation school, and then wait for the modification at the company. There may be backlogs at each node." Zhang Dingbo concluded, "The whole process is a backlog process."
However, many interviewees said that this problem is not serious in large state-owned airlines. Southern Weekend reporters contacted relevant airlines including Hainan Airlines and Xiamen Airlines to inquire about their trainee backlogs, but received no response. Zhang Dingbo expects that he will be able to return to the airline next year and start the job process.
When it comes to the backlog issue, most interviewees admit that the epidemic and the subsequent downturn in the civil aviation industry are the most significant reasons. However, redundancy of trainees had already appeared several years before the epidemic.
Many students and civil aviation practitioners told Southern Weekend reporters that due to the continued prosperity of the civil aviation industry before the epidemic, there was a round of large-scale expansion of flight students in China for several years, roughly between 2017 and 2019. The Civil Aviation Administration of China did not announce the annual number of flight students enrolled by civil aviation directly affiliated colleges before 2018, but from 2018 to 2019, the number increased from 5521 to 6232. Specifically for schools, taking the Civil Aviation University of China as an example, in the three years starting from 2017, the number of undergraduate students enrolled in its flight technology major was 2367, 2564, and 2820.
When these students were still on campus, the development of China's civil aviation industry reached its peak in 2019, but this momentum was interrupted by the epidemic. In 2020, the civil aviation industry achieved a total operating income of 624.691 billion yuan, a decrease of 41.1% over the previous year; passenger turnover was 631.128 billion person-kilometers, a decrease of 46.1% over the previous year.
Captain Lv Binglun, who has been a pilot for a large state-owned airline for 10 years, recalled that frontline pilots had a very direct sense of the heavy blow suffered by the civil aviation industry at that time. For domestic routes, the co-pilots of his airline flew only one-third to one-sixth of the normal hours per month, and some international routes were even directly suspended.
After 2023, although China's civil aviation industry is showing signs of recovery, some data indicators have not yet reached the 2019 level. The scale of international flight passenger traffic will not recover to 81.7% of 2019 until the first half of 2024. Han Tao, an expert from the think tank of the Guangdong Provincial Transportation Association, explained to the Southern Weekend reporter that most international flights are long-distance flights, requiring more pilots than domestic flights. "From the perspective of productivity, the insufficient recovery of international flights will further affect the demand for pilots."
The Civil Aviation Administration of China predicts that the main indicators of China's civil aviation industry's transport production in 2024 will exceed the full-year level in 2019.
Under such circumstances, airlines have to make changes. Lu Binglun said that at the airline he worked for, the total number of aircraft has slowed down, and the demand for new pilots has also declined. At some small airlines such as the one Chen Fulai signed, the number of aircraft is even declining, which further reduces demand.
In addition, in the view of some civil aviation practitioners, the four-year ban on some Boeing passenger aircraft models in China has also exacerbated the backlog. Since the two air crashes in 2018 and 2019 involved Boeing 737 MAX 8 passenger aircraft, the Civil Aviation Administration of China issued a notice in 2019 requiring domestic transport airlines to suspend the commercial operation of this Boeing model. Operations will not resume until the end of 2023.
Han Tao said that the recruitment plans of some domestic airlines have been affected by this. He explained that due to the grounding of some Boeing models, pilots who previously flew such models need to be refitted. Faced with such demand, airlines generally give priority to old pilots who previously flew Boeing passenger planes for model refit training, rather than waiting for flight trainees to take up their posts. However, there are limited training institutions for refitting in China, and pilots have to wait in line, and naturally trainees also have to wait in line.
In the past 2-3 years, students who graduated during the large-scale expansion have gradually graduated, and the excess supply has met the reduced demand, resulting in backlogs.
In a sense, Chen Xie is Qin Tian who chose another fork in his life.
In August 2020, Chen Xie also encountered an accident on the eve of flight training. According to the plan in the enrollment brochure, the aviation school should have found an airline to sign a contract for him, and the latter would pay for his flight training. Chen Xie said that the aviation school told him that few airlines were recruiting at the time, and if he wanted to continue to learn to fly, he had to pay 750,000 yuan himself, otherwise he would have to wait at home for an airline willing to sign a contract. Unlike Qin Tian, Chen Xie chose to pay out of his own pocket.
Outside the order-based training system led by airlines, there is a small number of students who first learn to fly, and after obtaining the relevant pilot license, they sign an employment contract with the airline, and the cost of flying training is entirely borne by themselves.
The problem of student backlogs that has gradually become apparent since 2020 has had an impact on the training practices of the civil aviation industry. According to Han Tao's prediction, the number of self-funded students may increase among future flight students. That is, if there are students willing to learn to fly, the aviation school will still accept them, but it may not arrange for airlines to sign contracts. Students may need to pay their own tuition fees, and whether they can find flight-related jobs in the future also depends on the students' own talents.
"The problem of backlog now is that trainees have signed a 'sale contract' with the airlines and can only wait for the airlines to arrange them. If the airlines are not doing well or cannot arrange them, the trainees will have wasted their youth." Han Tao said, "After self-funded trainees finish their studies, they may be able to apply for jobs at other airlines, and they will have more choices."
Wang Kuang also feels deeply about this phenomenon. In his opinion, the training system for "trained students" is relatively closed. During the years of study and training, they rarely come into contact with employment environments outside the civil aviation industry. Once the internal supply and demand are out of balance, trainees are forced to temporarily leave the civil aviation industry to make a living, "which is equivalent to a high school diploma."
In the absence of family connections and social resource support, they may encounter difficulties in finding jobs and can only work in low-threshold employment industries such as food delivery and online car-hailing drivers.
There are different pilot training models abroad. According to a paper written by Wang Xuelin, an associate professor at the School of Economics and Management of the China Aviation University, and other scholars, taking the United States as an example, it adopts the "general aviation +" model to train pilots. The training of most airline transport pilots is carried out in flight clubs, flight associations, flight driving schools, etc. The model is similar to that of Chinese car drivers, which is open to the public and has a low threshold.
Under this model, students need to pay about 500,000 yuan for learning to fly. After obtaining a commercial pilot's license, students can become a general aviation pilot (i.e., engage in civil aviation activities other than public air transport, such as disaster relief, weather detection, etc.). After accumulating 1,500 hours of flight time, they can join airlines as civil aviation pilots. Since American airlines mainly recruit pilots from the public, those who have accumulated enough flight hours can apply for the job.
Xu Shou disagrees with the view that China's civil aviation training system is closed. He believes that China included pilot training in colleges and universities when the general aviation field was not well developed before, and the flight technology major in colleges and universities has two sides: "On the one hand, the career development path is clear, and on the other hand, the employment is narrow."
Paying for one's own expenses does not necessarily mean good results - after graduation, Chen Xie paid another 350,000 yuan to a job search agency in an attempt to find a pilot position in an airline, but has not yet been able to get a job.
In addition, some changes have quietly taken place during the flight training phase. Whether this is related to the backlog of students remains to be discussed, but many students believe that these changes have made the road to flight training more difficult.
Zhang Dingbo found that the theoretical study time for senior students was about one and a half years, but starting from his level, this time was extended to two years. Several students and civil aviation practitioners also told Southern Weekend reporters that due to the large number of students, the flight learning process is also changing. Zhang Dingbo said that most of the previous exams were pass exams, "There is no such thing as comparing GPA or everyone competing for places, as long as you pass it." But he heard from the aviation school teacher that some airlines are considering arranging the order of return to the airline for modification based on the test scores in the future. The difficulty of the exam itself has also increased. Some interviewed students and some of their classmates have failed the exam.
However, according to Qi Qi, an associate professor at Guangzhou Civil Aviation Vocational and Technical College, these changes in the flight training process have little to do with the backlog, and there is no need to exaggerate the impact of the latter. "This is in accordance with the Civil Aviation Administration's regulations on pilot training. For the sake of aviation safety, this requirement is actually being revised continuously."
Recovery will still take time. According to estimates by some civil aviation practitioners and trainees, the backlog of trainees will be alleviated in 2-5 years. To speed up this process, Qi Qi believes that aviation schools can consider further reducing the number of admissions; airlines should also devote more flight time to train young people and prepare for the future.
Lv Binglun believes that to speed up this process, it is necessary to start by satisfying the rest time of active pilots. Taking his airline as an example, he feels that in recent years, a lot of pilots' rest time has been occupied, often used to participate in airport volunteer activities, temporary all-staff meetings, etc. Sometimes "the captain gets up at three or four in the morning, flies until eleven or twelve at night, and comes back. The leader is sitting in the office waiting, and (the captain) watches the meeting video for two hours before going home after watching it."
In his opinion, if the pilots' rest time can be fully guaranteed, when they participate in activities, there must be other pilots to complete the flight missions, so that more demands can be released.
On this issue, Xu Shou believes that there is no special way to speed up the congestion relief except waiting for the macroeconomic environment to further improve and for more routes and flights. "There are too many people now, so we can only bear it and endure it."
Xu Shou observed that too many flight trainees from ordinary families were suffering in the backlog process. In the past, he believed that becoming a pilot was the best opportunity for children from ordinary families to change their fate, but now he no longer thinks so.
(Except Han Tao and Qi Qi, other interviewees are pseudonyms)
Southern Weekend reporter Jiang Bowen and Southern Weekend intern Jin Yu
Editor: He Haining
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