According to the Airbus Global Services Forecast covering 2026-2045, the commercial aviation sector must recruit and train 2.44 million qualified professionals across three core segments. Over this twenty-year horizon, passenger traffic is projected to double to 10 billion travelers annually, requiring a worldwide active fleet of 45,550 aircraft among passenger airliners over 100 seats and freighters exceeding 10 tonnes of payload.
Aircrew recruitment represents a cornerstone of this expansion. The industry will require 660,000 new pilots, 730,000 maintenance technicians, and 1.05 million cabin crew members. These workforce projections account for fleet growth, airframe retirements, crew utilization rates, and regional crew complement variations. To support these operational requirements, Airbus anticipates that the annual aviation training market will expand at an average rate of 3.1% per year, reaching 17 billion dollars by 2045.
Personnel training forms part of a broader commercial aviation services sector expected to exceed 420 billion dollars annually by 2045, heavily driven by maintenance and digital fleet management solutions.
Why it matters for your training
These long-term projections confirm steady worldwide recruitment demand and sustained airline hiring pipelines for student pilots completing their initial flight training.
