GOOSE Recruitment and FlightGlobal have collaborated to create a unique annual pilot survey to expose, highlight and establish a new benchmark across a number of topics including health and wellbeing, career performance and pay, job seeking and job satisfaction and engagement.
Our survey has highlighted that many airline pilots feel stressed and undervalued by management, and, despite record demand for flight crew globally, worried about job security, and automation making their role redundant.
These are among the findings of our landmark survey which polled more than 1,300 working pilots worldwide on attitudes to their work.
Despite a perception that a cockpit career is glamorous, well-rewarded and a job for life, the survey revealed that pilots often feel anxious and insecure. Findings included:
40% of pilots feel “most stressed” by management, with rotations – the number of airport turnarounds they must carry out in a day – the second biggest contributor to stress
59% feel their employer does not care about their wellbeing
More than half of pilots have worried about losing their job in the past two years
29% of pilots do not plan to fly to retirement age
43% would not recommend a career as a pilot to young people
40% of pilots are concerned that autonomous technology is making the role of the pilot redundant
Among other findings, pilots rate “work-life balance” as the highest priority when choosing a flying job, ahead of salary, company culture, training, and career development. Interestingly, the list is almost reversed for pilots at the start of their career, who give “company culture” the biggest rating, with work-life balance the least important.
The survey also reveals that Lufthansa, Air France, and Virgin Atlantic are the three airlines pilots would most want to work for.
“These results show that, despite the appeal of a career as an airline pilot and demand for their services being higher than ever, airlines have significant challenges to address when it comes to the job satisfaction and wellbeing of their most important employees,” says Mark Charman, CEO and Founder of GOOSE Recruitment.
“While our survey does highlight many positive aspects of being a pilot, employers cannot ignore their responsibilities when it comes to issues like stress and mental wellbeing. We hope that these insights will help airlines adapt some of their human resources policies” says Sophie Wild, Director of Content Partnerships and Recruitment at FlightGlobal.
Read The Pilot Survey 2020 report in full here
For all media enquiries, please contact Nic Jones, Group Marketing Director at GOOSE Recruitment.
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