Historic flight school could fall victim to pilot shortage, lack of funding

This should be a year of celebration as the historic Ottawa Flying Club reaches a milestone of nine decades soaring through open skies above the nation’s capital.

Instead, the famous flight school is facing financial dark clouds. The not-for-profit organization struggled in 2017 because bad weather impacted flying time, which hurt revenues. It’s also coping with the fallout from a pilot shortage.

“We’re just scraping by,” said Richard Swaffer, the club’s general manager. “We’re just holding on by our fingernails right now.”

The club has even talked about closing.

“What if we don’t get any flying in during the next six weeks? There’s potential [of closing]. I would hate to see that happen. This is our 90th year flying,” said Swaffer, himself a pilot with 25 years flying experience.

The flight school has a plethora of prospective students and even turned away about 40 people last year. One of the biggest problems this upcoming flying season will be whether there are enough instructors to train the students. Read more…

Historic flight school could fall victim to pilot shortage, lack of funding