The American Dream: Why are Aussie pilots leaving?

Amid an ongoing skill shortage within Australia’s aviation sector, hundreds of specially trained and highly skilled employees have left the country beneath our very noses, possibly never to return. Hannah Dowling investigates.

If ‘unprecedented’ was the paramount buzzword of 2020, then ‘chaos’ can be awarded that same privilege in 2022, particularly in aviation. Headlines from across the globe have been plastered with disastrous scenes at airports, hours-long check-in and security queues that saw passengers miss their flights, or planeloads of people told to go home at the eleventh hour due to insufficient staff or aircraft. Those that successfully managed to board a flight were considered additionally lucky if they found their baggage in one piece at the correct destination.