Factors Affecting Passengers’ Acceptance of Single Pilot Operations: A Qualitative Study conducted in Greece

Aviation is undeniably one of the fastest-growing industries worldwide (ICAO, 2022). Analysts predict that despite a brief―yet considerable―pause, brought on by COVID-19 (Gao, 2022;IATA, 2022), global aviation traffic is increasing and will possibly threefold in the next 30 years (Gössling & Humpe, 2020;ICAO, 2023). Furthermore, this tremendous increase in air travel will also trigger a considerable need for personnel and will unavoidably lead to a significant shortage of pilots which has been forecasted by many sources in the past (Bennett & Vijaygopal, 2021;Champ, 2022;Meredith, 2019;Moehle & Clauss, 2015;Rice et al., 2014). Specifically, trends showed that the world will be lacking approximately 800,000 pilots by the year 2037 (Caraway, 2020). Put another way, the demand for airline pilots is going to outweigh the supply by far. Unfortunately, the high entry cost of new pilots to the industry and the relatively low salaries are averting a quick fix to this problem (Lutte, 2014) © 2022, International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace.All Rights Reserved.