The FAA projects that the number of U.S. airline passengers will grow from 665 million people last year to more than a billion people in 2011. Complicating the airlines' recruitment efforts is a surge in retirements among pilots who signed up when the carriers rapidly expanded at the dawn of the jet age in the mid-1960s. There has also been a slowdown in military pilot training, a longtime source of potential hires. That number has dropped to about 50 percent today. So airlines have abolished some of the restrictions that once were used to discourage applicants.
Age is no longer the factor it once was.
A decade ago, the average new pilot was in his or her late 20s. Today, the average age is over 30. Height and weight restrictions have also been liberalized. The airlines have gone from keeping the door closed to opening the door and letting them in. United Airlines has eliminated its application fee.