By Gerald Maguranyanga BEFORE the start of 2020, the worldwide aviation industry had a unique trait. There was an ambitious flying school, growing airline, big bucks corporate, on-the-money Hollywood celebrity or even a wealthy African businessperson looking for a qualified pilot and indulge their need-for-speed. In fact, it would be true that beyond the truly big guns like American Airlines, Delta and Qantas everyone with a pilot on their books would be 24/7, either losing a pilot or desperately looking to fill a vacancy. Aviation always suffered a substantial pilot shortage. Enter wicked, evil COVID-19 It has systematically disrupted life and social life has taken a painful hit. From the privileged scholar at an elite school like Esigodini’s Falcon College, the university student in Wuhan, China, an ordinary office worker in Bolivia, the professional rugby player at ASM Clermont in France, the rural teacher in Magunje,to virtually anyone, life has been changed. The COVID-19 blow has decimated big and small jobs and piled misery on families. Please spare a thought for the ruined job of professional pilots. They now have to idly sit at home “making a plan”. Fewer than half of all commercial pilots around the world are still flying for a living today, with 30% describing themselves as unemployed and a further 17% furloughed, according to the first worldwide survey of the profession since the COVID-19 pandemic started. That conservative number is nearly 50% of all commercial pilots that were active in 2019 and before. That is staggering! In addition, 6% say they are employed in aviation in a non-flying role. Another 4% are working, but in other industries. It leaves just 40% of pilots doing the job they trained for. These numbers were extracted from a wide poll of almost 3 000 flight crew and was carried out in October 2020 by Goose Recruitment in partnership with FlightGlobal. They paint a dreary picture of a community devastated economically and psychologically by the pandemic. Pilots are in pain, unemployed and enduring life struggles they never imagined before. Air Zimbabwe and the privately-owned fastjet have been quietly enduring the bleeding of COVID-19. It’s a whole story for another day. They had to send their highly-trained pilots back home, with little or nothing. You just have to shed a tear for the pilots, many of whom have not flown since early last year and have since endured the dreaded furlough, which in many cases saw redundant pilots go home heads dropped to face an uncertain future. What is worse is that pilots have taken jobs outside the industry, such as driving delivery vans for supermarkets or online retailers, most commonly in Europe. This writer, knows of several furloughed pilots driving own vehicles, doing grocery and fuel deliveries in Harare for online shoppers, for something as low as US$3 per trip. In South Africa, hundreds of top guns like experienced pilots working for South African Airways went home just like that never to return to their base at the world-class OR Tambo International