Employment status and future analysis of military and civil (airline) pilots

Although the aviation sector has experienced many crises, the demand for airline transportation is increasing. This demand raises the need for more aircraft and therefore more pilots. In this case, the aviation industry relies heavily on recruiting pilots who have left the military around the world to meet the need for pilots for aircraft. In recent years, there has been a significant decrease in the number of pilots employed in the army. At the same time, the sector continues to grow by trying to meet the increasing demand with many pilots with military experience. The pilot shortage has prompted airlines to develop strategies to recruit and retain pilots. The underlying causes of the deficit are many reasons such as mandatory retirement age, high flight hours requirement, economic crisis, terrorist attacks, political crisis, flight training costs and epidemics. As for Türkiye, it is thought that there will be a pilot shortage with aircraft orders for the coming years. The aim of this study is to investigate the employment status of military and civillian (airline) pilots and analyze their future status. In order to achieve this, a descriptive analysis was made by collecting data with the document analysis technique, one of the qualitative research methods.