FRANKFORT, Ky. (LEX 18) — A bill making its way through the legislature aims to make it more affordable to get training for aerospace jobs. As the world faces a shortage of pilots, mechanics, and other aviation workers, students here in Kentucky could soon be eligible for new scholarships.
Flight schools across Kentucky have been busy these last few years. A wave of airline pilot retirements has created increasing demand for new pilots over the next several years. Boeing forecasts North America will need 127,000 new pilots between now and 2042.
"Airlines are parking jets every day because they don't have pilots to captain them," said Kelli Gillispie, the director of office operations for NexGen Aviation at Blue Grass Airport.
Gillispie has also lobbied for aviation causes in the Kentucky Legislature. This year, lawmakers are considering a bill to make this training more affordable. The most common path for pilots on their way to the airlines is to earn their private, instrument, commercial, and instructor requirements, then teach new students as they build the necessary hours to qualify. Those qualifications cost tens of thousands of dollars. Senate Bill 127 would establish the Kentucky aerospace, aviation, and defense investment fund, opening up scholarships and grant money to people in flight training, and not just those in college programs.
"That's one of the biggest things here that's going to be huge for us and any other flight school that is 141-certified. Basically, it's going to enable people to bypass a lot of the other stuff that you wouldn't be able to do before," Gillispie said.
"It would mean that they can start their career and not be under the thumb of all of the loans that anything else like a college produces," Gillispie added.
Senate Bill 127 has already passed unanimously out of the Senate and is now in the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee.
