The aviation environment is now flying in uncharted territory. Many airlines are flying empty airplanes and losing millions of dollars every day. Some will go out of business, and at others may enter bankruptcy. The airline landscape will surely look different this time next year.

 

During the past year, airline hiring was going gangbusters. Many of these same new-hires will find themselves receiving furlough notices. At the same time, pilots are retiring at record numbers. this will result in numerous upgrades at the airlines that survive.

 

General Aviation(GA) flight training has dried up as student pilots are either sheltering at home or social distancing, which precludes sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in a GA airplane. Flight Instructors are finding themselves without students, and without anyone to train they have no income.

 

These are tough times. And it's going to be stressful for a lot of us in the aviation community.

 

In 1967, Holmes and Rahe developed a Table of Life Stress Values. The table attempts to assign numerical values to potential life events, with higher numbers representing greater stress. For example "death of a spouse" is 100 points. If you look at the table in our Show Notes you will see numerous potential stressors for people in the Aviation industry.

 

If you get furloughed, you will get 47 stress points for losing your job (item 8). Additionally, you will probably be "changing to a different line of work" (item 18) for 36 points. There's a good chance you will have a "major change in living conditions" (item 28) for 25 points and "major changes in working hours or conditions (item 31) for 20 points. Look through the table and you may find other stressors.