International pilot shortage has South Florida flight schools buzzing - Miami Hurricanes (blog)

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International pilot shortage has South Florida flight schools buzzing - Miami Hurricanes (blog)

Once-struggling South Florida flight schools are seeing the largest influx of foreign students since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the result of a severe shortage of airline pilots worldwide.

The students can more easily enroll because the Transportation Security Administration has streamlined the application process. And South Florida is a popular choice for them because year-round good weather allows accelerated training and local schools have been aggressively wooing them.

This year, more than 1,000 foreign nationals are enrolled at about 30 flight schools between Miami and West Palm Beach. Most come on a two-year visa, training to fill a projected 460,000 airline pilot jobs worldwide over the next 20 years, brought on by surging market growth and the retirement of older pilots.

http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=...5448.story