<rant>
I'm skeptical of the reasons many people give for the declining state of the flight training industry.
"Prices are too high" is the one I hear the most. I honestly believe that price is only a factor if we tell people it is. Flying always has been and always will be expensive. It's always taken a certain amount of sacrifice to do it.
The problem I see is that flight schools, as a whole, have done a lousy job of promoting themselves. We tell people all the reasons why they *shouldn't* become pilots. It's too expensive, it's too technical, it's dangerous, there's no use for it after you get your license, yada yada yada...
A lot of flight schools do little to no advertising, have beat up old planes from the 1970s, have a revolving door for their staff, instructors who don't know the first thing about customer service, and then everybody acts surprised when customers don't beat down the doors! It's crazy...is it really that much of a shock when places like this go out of business?
A short story for you...one of the customers who has been training for the past couple months at my flight school recently told us about his experience with our closest competitor before he found us. He said he met an instructor at the other place and said he wanted to learn how to fly. The first thing the instructor said was, "You know it's going to be expensive, right?" The guy, who is a successful businessman, said, "Ok." Then the instructor said, "And you know it's pretty technical, right?" So the guy, who I must say is pretty darn sharp, said, "Ok." They talked for a few minutes, he got the feeling the CFI wasn't going to help him become a pilot, so he thanked him for his time and left. Eventually he found our school and is doing fine, but it blows me away to hear stories like this first encounter at an airport. What are some people thinking? Is that kind of talk seriously expected to grow the industry?
So I guess what I'm saying with this lengthy post is that I believe a large chunk of our decline in student pilots (and to answer the OP, yes, I do believe there has been a decline in student pilots over the years), is caused by our own incompetence with marketing flight training, rather than external factors outside of our control.
No matter if people want to fly for business, pleasure, a career, or all of the above, we need to do a better job of convincing them that it's possible, rather than telling them that it's a lost cause and they're better off driving.
</rant>