A MARTINEZ, HOST:
The airline industry is trying to navigate through some turbulence right now. Across the country, companies say they just don’t have enough pilots. And some have even had to park jets and cut service because of the shortage. Looking for innovative ways to recruit and retain, one major airline is set to open its own flight school. Here’s NPR’s David Schaper.
DAVID SCHAPER, BYLINE: To an airline, well-trained pilots are as essential as planes and fuel. But right now, pilots are in very short supply.
FAYE MALARKEY BLACK: The entire airline industry has been facing a pilot shortage for the last decade.
SCHAPER: That’s Faye Malarkey Black, CEO of the Regional Airlines Association, a group representing smaller carriers, like Endeavor, Envoy, GoJet and SkyWest, which fly passengers for the major airlines branded as Delta Connection, American Eagle and United Express. Black says with the wave of baby boomers nearing retirement age, the industry was already facing a pilot shortage. And the pandemic made it much worse, as major airlines offered incentives for many veteran pilots to take early retirement, while the FAA’s issuance of new pilot certificates nearly ground to a halt. So when air travel demand recovered much more quickly than anticipated, Black says the big airlines hired a lot of pilots away from their smaller regional partners.
BLACK: You know, that propensity for a major airline to hire from a regional airline has always been the case. And that is the natural career order. We don’t want to stop that. But the issue we have to respect and appreciate is that that is now happening on steroids.
SCHAPER: So to recruit more pilots, the usually low-paying regional airlines are now sharply increasing pay. Starting salaries that were in the $25,000 to $40,000-a-year range can now top 50K or more. Once at the mainline airlines, pilots average six figures-plus. But long before being able to make that kind of money,…
