In December, United started teaching the first students at its own flight school, the United Aviate Academy, in Goodyear, Arizona, with a goal of training 5,000 pilots there by 2030. "You can't just get someone to come in from the street." It can then take about 18 months or longer for pilots to build up enough hours to fly, often by instructing student pilots or sometimes by flying banners near beaches. While salaries for widebody captains at major airlines can exceed $350,000 a year, getting qualified takes years.Īt ATP Flight School, the largest in the country, it costs close to $92,000 for a seven-month, full-time program to get initial licenses. One of the biggest hurdles to bringing in new pilots is the cost of schooling. "If they don't fly it, maybe a smaller airline will," he said. cities but Darby, the pilot pay consultant, said it could mean an opening for smaller competitors that don't rely on regional airlines as much as major network airlines.
Service reductions could isolate smaller U.S. SkyWest, for its part, told the Transportation Department it plans to drop service to 29 smaller cities that the government subsidizes through the Essential Air Service. JetBlue Airways and Alaska Airlines are among carriers that have recently trimmed capacity. Pilot and other worker shortages have forced airlines to rethink their growth plans. Graham's office did not respond to requests for comment. are between the ages of 51 and 59, and 13% of the country's airline pilots will reach retirement age within the five years, according to the Regional Airline Association.
Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is considering introducing congressional legislation that could raise the mandatory airline pilot retirement age to at least 67 from the current age of 65, according to people familiar with Graham's plans.Ībout a third of the airline-qualified pilots in the U.S. "The FAA fully understands the intent of Congress when it established the 1,500-hour requirement and supports the safety goal it set out to achieve." "While anyone can request an exemption, it does not mean it will be granted," the FAA said in a statement to CNBC on Monday. The Federal Aviation Administration cast doubt on whether the proposal would be approved. The tragedy killed all 49 people on board and one on the ground, and ushered in the so-called 1,500-hour rule, aimed at ensuring pilot experience. The proposal has received pushback from family members of victims of 2009's Colgan Air 3407 crash, the last fatal U.S.
There are already exemptions to the 1,500-hour rule, such as for U.S.-military trained pilots and those who attend two- and four-year programs that include flight training. government to allow pilots to fly for the airline with 750 hours, half of the 1,500 currently required, if they go through the carrier's training program. Regional carrier Republic Airways, which flies for American, Delta and United, last month petitioned the U.S. Some carriers like Frontier and regional airline SkyWest are recruiting pilots from Australia under a special visa to help ease the shortfall, but the numbers are small compared with their overall ranks and hiring goals. "We could use 200 pilots right now," he said. It takes Mesa an estimated 120 days to replace a pilot who gives two weeks' notice to go to another airline, according to Ornstein. "If we don't fly our airplanes we lose money. "We never fathomed attrition levels like this," said Mesa CEO Jonathan Ornstein. Phoenix-based Mesa Air Group, which flies for American and United, lost nearly $43 million in the last quarter as flight cuts mounted. While hiring and retention bonuses have returned at those airlines, pay is lower there than at majors, and they are recruiting aggressively from those smaller carriers. The shortage is particularly acute at regional carriers that feed major airlines' hubs from smaller cities. airlines are trying to hire more than 12,000 pilots combined this year alone, more than double the previous record in annual hiring, according to Kit Darby, a pilot pay consultant and a retired United captain. Now airlines are desperate to hire and train pilots, but the rush may take too long to avoid flight cuts. airline who took an early retirement package in 2020. "I feel like I walked away at the pinnacle," said one former captain for a major U.S. Airlines handed out early retirement packages to thousands of pilots and other employees aimed to cut labor bills when travel demand cratered during the depths of crisis. The Covid pandemic halted pilot hiring as training and licensing slowed.
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