T.F. Green is growing rapidly, with new flights, airlines and a longer runway, but that progress may falter if a growing nationwide pilot shortage touches down in Rhode Island.

“It’s basically a situation where a pilot is looking at a good return on investment,” said Gregg Overman, the communication director for the Allied Pilots Association, the union for American Airlines pilots. “For a lot of time after 9/11 it was a poor career option, so the best and brightest young people were going into other fields.”

Between 2017 and 2036 the worldwide demand for pilots will be 637,000, due to increasing market demand for air travel, according to a study done by Boeing. That new demand, along with a crop of airline pilots reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65 soon, threatens to cause huge pilot shortages across the globe.

Horizon Aviation, a flight school based at T.F. Green Airport, is already feeling that pilot squeeze. Horizon relies on flight instructors to teach new clients how to fly, and those instructors are becoming more difficult to hire and retain as the regional and major airlines snatch up most of the qualified pilots.

“They’re snapping up people as fast as they can,” said Chris Porter, a flight instructor and communications director at Horizon, about the regional airlines. “Even the military is having a hard time attracting pilots. They’re having a shortage as well.”

The Air Force has 18,000 of the 20,000 pilots it needs to be fully manned, according to Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, as reported by the Air Force Times

“I personally don’t think the flight instructor business can stand the way it is now, so we want to be ahead of the curve,” said Porter. “How do you change [flight instructing] from being a temporary thing, to being something you can do for many years?”

In the United States all First Officers on commercial passenger flights need 1,500 hours of flight time before they can start working for an airline.

“The terrible part is when you hit that 1,500 hour mark, you’ve really figured out how to teach,” said Porter. “Flying, believe it or not, is the easy part, but figuring out how to disseminate information clearly and efficiently, that’s the trick, and just when someone is getting really experienced and really good at what they do, they leave.”

The flight instructors leave for the regional airlines, such as Cape Air, American Eagle, and Skywest, which fly into T.F. Green, often with planes branded like those of the major airlines.

The pay at these regional airlines used to be meager, but in recent years has spiked due to increased demand. Republic Airline, a regional carrier based in Indianapolis, Ind., is offering new First Officers $45/hour, as well as signing bonuses of up to $17,500. They’ll also pay for part of your flight school if you haven’t finished yet.

But the flight of flight instructors from the classroom to the cockpit causes a vicious cycle, where there won’t be enough instructors to teach the next generation of pilots.

“We have no shortage of people who are looking to learn how to fly,” said Porter. “The phone rings everyday, we get emails every day. We are trying to grow so we can handle that capacity.”

Horizon Aviation is trying to grow their flight instructor ranks by offering salaried positions, rather than the per-hour payment that is common to the industry. The idea, Porter said, is to make flight instructing not a stepping-stone to the airlines, but instead a career in its own right.

One of the pilots pursuing the instructor path rather than flocking to the airlines is Rob Dumovic, a flight instructor with Horizon. Dumovic’s been a flight instructor since 2007, and a part of Horizon since 2017.

“Flying airliners didn’t fit my personality,” said Dumovic. “I teach acrobatics, and the airlines don’t like that.”

Dumovic is one of the flight instructors who’ve taken up a salaried position with Horizon.

“It’s that one on one interaction,” said Dumovic, speaking about why he loves teaching new pilots. “There’s nothing more satisfying than stepping out of the airplane and telling [the student] that it’s your plane. You’re going solo.”

Horizon has 26 planes at their two school locations, but only 8 flight instructors. Dumovic wishes he had 20.

“I need instructors,” said Dumovic. “Flying has to be romanticized again, like the old days. It can’t just be sheparding cattle, which is what most airline pilots do.”

Horizon has to tell new clients that they have to wait a few weeks before an instructor will be free to teach them.

The industry is pursuing other ways to correct the lack of pilots.

One way is through the ab initio method. Ab initio - Latin for “from the beginning” - aims to take candidates with no flying experience and transform them into fully fledged airline pilots within a few years, or in some programs, even months. Most of the time airlines sponsor the programs, paying in full or in part for tuition in exchange for a commitment from the pilot to their airline.

“Worldwide the ab initio program is widespread,” said Overman. “I think you’ll see more and more airlines seeing they have to go that route. That has been the approach in other countries, like Europe for example.”

Lufthansa, the European airline giant, trains many of its pilots at a facility in Arizona.

That same philosophy is starting to spread into American providers as well. American Airlines, through their regional carrier PSA Airlines, has a cadet program that helps pay for parts of flight school and guarantees a job upon graduation, as well as a signing bonus of $20,000 after serving one year with their service. First year pay with PSA Airlines is upwards of $60,000.

Even with all these incentives, beginner pilots are struggling to get the hours and training to graduate to the airlines because of the huge cost of entry.

The first step for any new pilot, regardless of their career aspirations or lack thereof, is the Private Pilot’s License. Requiring at least 40 hours of flight time on top of classroom instruction, Horizon Aviation, using past clients as a guide, estimates it costs about $13,000 to get a Private Pilot’s License.

But a lot more training is required before a pilot is allowed to teach others, let alone fly a jet plane.

After gaining a Private Pilot’s License the next step is acquiring the Instrument License, which allows a pilot to fly through bad weather, and then the Commercial License, which gives the ability to fly for pay. A CFI, or Certified Flight Instructor License, is required before a pilot can teach.

All of that training, starting with the Private Pilot’s License, costs upwards of $50,000. And that’s all before making a single penny.

Airline candidates need hundreds of additional hours of flight time and training before they can fly a commercial passenger jet.

All of this, combined with the fact that student loans are nearly impossible to acquire for flight training, makes entering the industry difficult for most candidates.

“I was able to finance my flight training,” said Porter. “I got through my Private Pilot’s license, was able to pay cash for that, and at the time there were student loans available to basically finance everything. There were many financing options. You could apply through Sallie Mae to take out a career training loan.”

Those loans dried up after the 2008 recession.

But market forces are looking to close the gap between what’s needed and what’s available.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has two campuses, one in Daytona Beach, Fla. and another in Prescott, Ariz. According to a press release from the university, Embry-Riddle had the largest entering freshman class in 15 years last fall.

“There’s a very high demand,” said Ginger Pinholster, Assistant Vice President of News and Research Communications at Embry-Riddle. “Last year we had a record crop of incoming students.”

Embry-Riddle, like other flight schools in the country, is having the same problem of retaining flight instructors before regional airlines hire them.

“The turnover is very intense right now,” said Pinholster. “[Flight instructors] are moving on faster than we can draw them.”

If airlines aren’t able to get enough qualified pilots, then the number of routes could decrease, and prices might rise. T.F. Green could be affected.

Demand is rising, salaries are going up, and the future is bright for air travel. If now is not the time to live out a childhood dream of flying through the clouds, then when?