Impact of Covid-19 on pilot training – December update

A month ago, we released a blog post sharing some of our unique data on how pilot schools are currently coping with the situation during the Covid-19 pandemic. If you haven’t already read that blog post, we recommend that you start there.

The idea with sharing these insights was to follow up with an updated status on a monthly basis as our statistics get updated, and this December update is based on completely fresh data after our November numbers came in.

4.5% decrease in activities from October to November

As the graph shown below reveals, we have seen a slight decrease of pilot training activities from October to November when looking at the number of active students per pilot academy. The development represents a 4,5% fall in November compared to the previous month.

When comparing to the pre-Covid19 state (97,2 students in February 2020), activities are currently at 89% of how things looked before Covid19.

Looking at our other main source of data, the number of lesson flights registered per week in total, we see the same fall in activities from October to November. However, some of this can be explained by the fact that some of our schools are right now approaching the winter season, where we traditionally see a drastic fall simply due to the fact that the lack of daylight and difficult weather conditions keep a lot of the aircraft grounded. And many accademies have also been completing students and are waiting on new classes to start. You can see that by studying the graph below.

Still, comparing 2020 to the patterns of previous years, the fall of activity comes a bit earlier than usual, which could point in the direction of Covid19 having a negative impact on school flight activities in November.

Is this a surprising development?

Needless to say, we are not surprised to see this fall in activities, mainly due to the fact that the second wave of the pandemic has hit severely, causing restrictions to be reintroduced in most regions all over the world.

And while we are seeing more positive predictions on the recovery of the aviation industry – which will help bring back a demand for pilot education – it is still outweighed by the fact that the Covid19 vaccine has not yet been deployed combined with the second wave of the pandemic hitting us with the winter season.

The real question is: How “deep” will the drop end up being?

We will post another update on the state of pilot training in the beginning of the new year. To receive future updates on the state of pilot training following Covid-19, along with other interesting insights from FlightLogger, we recommend that you subscribe to our newsletter by filling out the form in the footer of this page.