Bruce Dwyer says he's been teaching in Algonquin College's Aviation Management program so long that it's rare for him to be at an airport and not see someone he knows.
"I was in Florida recently waiting to get on an Air Canada Rouge flight home," says Dwyer, Professor and Coordinator of Aviation Studies, "and there was one of my former students walking up the ramp with the 767 crew ready to take us home."
Graduates in the program are in high demand with leading employers. Not so long ago, Dwyer says, students would graduate and by necessity slowly work their way up the ladder. Initially, they might have taught flying for a few years or serviced isolated communities. Today, pilots coming out of flight school often start their careers flying for Jazz or Porter.
Algonquin aviation graduates now fly with every major national and regional airline in Canada, and with airlines around the globe. They stay in touch on Facebook, trading memories, new experiences and photos.
"I tell prospective students this is a great time to be in the business," Dwyer says. "The industry is ripe for them, and industry loves the grads we produce."
Second-year Algonquin student Tyler Gledhill, 23, says he can't wait for the day he launches his career in aviation.
He has loved the idea of flying for years but says he never acted on it until he was challenged at a conference to do something he'd always wanted to do. "I came home to Ottawa, got an intro flight I actually flew with Bruce and fell in love with flying. I said it was the greatest thing ever, and Bruce being Bruce, he recommended the Algonquin program. I applied for it and I was in."
Upon graduation, aviation will become Gledhill's second career after a few years spent in IT. He credits his professors and instructors with keeping a demanding course load practical and for being accessible to their students. "They are very, very focused on you. If you need help understanding something, they'll make time for you." He hopes to start working in the North "perhaps get into a float operation, I know I'd like that" and later move on to commercial airlines and travel the world.
The success of Gledhill and his peers is critical to an aviation industry facing a dramatic skills shortage.
A 2018 study by the Canadian Council for Aviation and Aerospace looked at the industry's future hiring requirements. It determined that over the subsequent five-year period, Canada required about 3,000 pilots. Canada issues approximately 1,200 commercial pilot licences each year, about 51 per cent of which go to international students who will return home to work in China, India, the Middle East and other regions.
This means Canada is producing about 600 pilots for its domestic market annually and not all of those remain in aviation. "Only 73 per cent stay in as line pilots and pursue a career," Dwyer says. "Others move into management or do other things. Some become disenchanted. I've had students who graduated from our program, started flying the line with Jazz, and said, This isn't what I wanted to do. It's no fun it's like driving a bus.' Another guy worked his butt off, got into Jazz as a first officer on a regional jet this guy's made it! He quit and went to work in construction with his father."
An aviation career is not a choice anyone makes lightly. The two-year Aviation Management diploma program costs $85,000. It is the single most expensive program at Algonquin College. (International students pay an additional $20,000 premium.) Teaching people to fly is costly: it involves renting planes, securing flight instructors and paying for aviation fuel on top of the standard cost of a college education.
Despite the expense, there is no difficulty attracting students to the program. There were 160 students on the waiting list for entry to the 2019-2020 Aviation Management program. Algonquin could easily double or triple its intake if there were enough instructors and planes available in the National Capital Region to give them the flight time they require.
There is a shortage of both. Flight training is provided through the College's partners in the program, including the Rockliffe Flying Club, the Ottawa Flying Club and Ottawa Aviation. Many of their planes are unavailable at any given time due to routine maintenance. Because there is limited hanger space, and there aren't enough mechanics, there is often a backlog of planes awaiting attention, which means they aren't available to students.
Aviation Management completed a capacity plan for its pilot program in the spring. The College's partners had agreed to take 20 flight students each, which meant the College could accept 60 students. But one of the partners lost its maintenance provider and access to a number of leased aircraft. They suddenly couldn't take on any new students. As summer began, another partner parted ways with key instructors; they retained enough capacity to take just 12 students. "We used to accept about 80 students per year," Dwyer says. "This year we initially proposed 60, then had to cut it back to 40 and finally accepted 32."
Dwyer puts the coming pilot shortage in perspective. He says the full roster of pilots at Air Canada numbers about 3,500 individuals. If Canada is short 3,000 pilots in the years ahead, "that means the equivalent of losing almost every pilot at Air Canada. That's a big problem for the smaller airlines, the freight operators and the flight schools. But Air Canada isn't going to stop flying. Neither is WestJet or Porter. That's where all the students want to go, and there are going to be tremendous opportunities for people ready to launch their careers."
"I was in Florida recently waiting to get on an Air Canada Rouge flight home," says Dwyer, Professor and Coordinator of Aviation Studies, "and there was one of my former students walking up the ramp with the 767 crew ready to take us home."
Graduates in the program are in high demand with leading employers. Not so long ago, Dwyer says, students would graduate and by necessity slowly work their way up the ladder. Initially, they might have taught flying for a few years or serviced isolated communities. Today, pilots coming out of flight school often start their careers flying for Jazz or Porter.
Algonquin aviation graduates now fly with every major national and regional airline in Canada, and with airlines around the globe. They stay in touch on Facebook, trading memories, new experiences and photos.
"I tell prospective students this is a great time to be in the business," Dwyer says. "The industry is ripe for them, and industry loves the grads we produce."
Second-year Algonquin student Tyler Gledhill, 23, says he can't wait for the day he launches his career in aviation.
He has loved the idea of flying for years but says he never acted on it until he was challenged at a conference to do something he'd always wanted to do. "I came home to Ottawa, got an intro flight I actually flew with Bruce and fell in love with flying. I said it was the greatest thing ever, and Bruce being Bruce, he recommended the Algonquin program. I applied for it and I was in."
Upon graduation, aviation will become Gledhill's second career after a few years spent in IT. He credits his professors and instructors with keeping a demanding course load practical and for being accessible to their students. "They are very, very focused on you. If you need help understanding something, they'll make time for you." He hopes to start working in the North "perhaps get into a float operation, I know I'd like that" and later move on to commercial airlines and travel the world.
The success of Gledhill and his peers is critical to an aviation industry facing a dramatic skills shortage.
A 2018 study by the Canadian Council for Aviation and Aerospace looked at the industry's future hiring requirements. It determined that over the subsequent five-year period, Canada required about 3,000 pilots. Canada issues approximately 1,200 commercial pilot licences each year, about 51 per cent of which go to international students who will return home to work in China, India, the Middle East and other regions.
This means Canada is producing about 600 pilots for its domestic market annually and not all of those remain in aviation. "Only 73 per cent stay in as line pilots and pursue a career," Dwyer says. "Others move into management or do other things. Some become disenchanted. I've had students who graduated from our program, started flying the line with Jazz, and said, This isn't what I wanted to do. It's no fun it's like driving a bus.' Another guy worked his butt off, got into Jazz as a first officer on a regional jet this guy's made it! He quit and went to work in construction with his father."
An aviation career is not a choice anyone makes lightly. The two-year Aviation Management diploma program costs $85,000. It is the single most expensive program at Algonquin College. (International students pay an additional $20,000 premium.) Teaching people to fly is costly: it involves renting planes, securing flight instructors and paying for aviation fuel on top of the standard cost of a college education.
Despite the expense, there is no difficulty attracting students to the program. There were 160 students on the waiting list for entry to the 2019-2020 Aviation Management program. Algonquin could easily double or triple its intake if there were enough instructors and planes available in the National Capital Region to give them the flight time they require.
There is a shortage of both. Flight training is provided through the College's partners in the program, including the Rockliffe Flying Club, the Ottawa Flying Club and Ottawa Aviation. Many of their planes are unavailable at any given time due to routine maintenance. Because there is limited hanger space, and there aren't enough mechanics, there is often a backlog of planes awaiting attention, which means they aren't available to students.
Aviation Management completed a capacity plan for its pilot program in the spring. The College's partners had agreed to take 20 flight students each, which meant the College could accept 60 students. But one of the partners lost its maintenance provider and access to a number of leased aircraft. They suddenly couldn't take on any new students. As summer began, another partner parted ways with key instructors; they retained enough capacity to take just 12 students. "We used to accept about 80 students per year," Dwyer says. "This year we initially proposed 60, then had to cut it back to 40 and finally accepted 32."
Dwyer puts the coming pilot shortage in perspective. He says the full roster of pilots at Air Canada numbers about 3,500 individuals. If Canada is short 3,000 pilots in the years ahead, "that means the equivalent of losing almost every pilot at Air Canada. That's a big problem for the smaller airlines, the freight operators and the flight schools. But Air Canada isn't going to stop flying. Neither is WestJet or Porter. That's where all the students want to go, and there are going to be tremendous opportunities for people ready to launch their careers."
For more information
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Ottawa Ontario
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www.algonquincollege.com/
