Still, it would be interesting to see approximate numbers for previous years. FAA have all sort of statistics on their website, but EASA seems to keep it as secret.
Here are some UK stats, from a UK flight training trade magazine:
AFAIK Germany and France have larger numbers of GA pilots (UK 20k versus France 40k, for example) but this gives you an idea. I would say all of Europe has under 100k pilots, because the GA communities in the other countries (apart from these three) are mostly very small.
Perhaps a more relevant statistic would be how many hours are flown. In the UK it is generally said to be 20-30 hours a year on average.
Here are the data for Czechia (obtained from the CAA and LAA by aeroweb.cz):
With the population of 10,6 million as of 2016, the total share of pilots in the population is 0.21%, including 0.09% with CAA-issued licences – quite a culture, which started a century ago under the motto “Sky is our sea” (as Czechoslovakia was a landlocked country).
Every time that that last one on your list goes up in the balloon here goes through the mind: “I am the King/Queen of the hill”
Peter wrote:
AFAIK Germany and France have larger numbers of GA pilots (UK 20k versus France 40k, for example) but this gives you an idea. I would say all of Europe has under 100k pilots, because the GA communities in the other countries (apart from these three) are mostly very small.
I think those figures may be too low. Sweden alone currently have about 3500 UL/LAPL(A)/PPL(A) pilots with valid ratings. The licenses may not expire but the ratings do, so this figure is a reasonable estimate of the number of flying pilots.
I would think so too. Sweden has more twice the population as Norway, and the numbers seem to be about twice as much. The numbers from 2017 for Norway is 1317 PPL(A), 71 PPL(H) and 76 LAPL(A). In addition it’s at least 1000 UL and around 400 SPL(A) So, roughly 3000 with valid ratings. PPL is at an all time low by the way, in 2011 it was 2200.
It was in 2009 about 15k “members” (persons that has a license of some kind, but not necessarily a valid rating, or valid medical). That number is probably not changed much in the last 10 years I would think.
At any rate that gives anywhere from 0.06 % (active) to 0.3% (total) private pilots.
Include commercial pilots and the numbers are 1026 ATPL(A), 308 ATPL(H), 707 CPL(A) and 327 CPL(H). So active civilian licenses are around 5400. This means around 0.11 % total and around 0.06% private.
It seems to me that those numbers are roughly the same throughout Europe. EASA includes about 500 mill people, and this means around 300k active private pilots.
I don’t have any stats for that, but what I have seen living in southern Europe (Italy, Spain) for a while is that many pilots there have abandoned the PPL arena and moved to UL/LAPL(A) or whatever these licenses are called. And it makes sense: both Spain and Italy (and France) are big enough and the wx good enough for 99.99% of pleasure flights and quite some touring. You simply don’t need a PPL in these places, in fact, flying a ‘certified’ aircraft is more of a hindrance as there are way more UL fields than licensed airports. If I still lived there, I might well have gone that route myself by now.
According to my favourite magazine approximately half of all European private licences are French. I’ve also heard anecdotally there are in total 200,000 pilots across all disciplines in France, but I haven’t found any references for either of these numbers. The DGAC doesn’t seem to publish figures, but the FFA had 41,180 members in 2017.
Of the 41,180, 8% are female, and 16% aged 21 or under (up from 10% in 2005). Flying hours in 2017 was 514,862, so an average of only 12.5 hours per pilot but 217 hours per plane; 56% of hours were instruction. 36% of the 2,376 club aircraft are DR400s. Number of members and hours flown are pretty stable over the last five years. 1,802 new licences were issued to FFA members last year: 1,105 TT/PPL; 697 BB/LAPL.
The FFA figures are from Info-Pilote and are for aéroclub pilots only, so don’t count unaffiliated private owners/co-owners, renters, larger aircraft pilots e.g. multi-engine or turbine. If all these are counted the figure for GA will be considerably higher, but I don’t know how much.
There are seven federations in total, the other six for ULM, glider, gyrocopter, homebuilt, model, and balloon. The only figures I found are from 2013 with FFPLUM (microlights) 14,513 and FFVV (gliders) 10,397 members. If licences don’t need revalidating, a membership is probably the only way to get an accurate number of current pilots.
If France has 40k PPLs and this is 50% of all of Europe, and given that UK’s 20k “pilots with valid medicals” seems generally accepted and comes from the CAA (although it does include commercial pilots) that implies all the rest of Europe is no bigger than 20k.
This implies Germany is well below 20k and probably about 10k (i.e. much smaller than the UK) which I find hard believe.
Commercial pilots are not all that numerous, relative to private pilots.
Peter wrote:
Commercial pilots are not all that numerous, relative to private pilots.
I am surprised to hear that. BA alone has 4000. I can’t imagine that the other airlines add up to less than the same again. Then there are all the bizjet and helicopter pilots, plus instructors etc. I would have thought that the number of professionals is comparable with the number of active amateurs.
