Skift Take
As if pilot shortage was not a blow enough to deal with, U.S. airlines are now facing a peculiar issue of position upgrades to captain.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has acknowledged that the carrier’s pilots are shunning promotion to the captain’s chair, hurting its flight capacity in the fourth quarter, confirming what Reuters reported earlier this week.
Multiple pilots at United told Reuters that senior first officers have been avoiding promotion to captain as they do not want the unpredictable schedule that comes with the bigger paycheck, creating headaches for the Chicago-based company.
“It’s the first time that I’ve ever known it to happen in the airline industry,” Kirby said in response to a question on the company’s earnings call on Thursday. “It is going to impact capacity in the fourth quarter.”
A first officer helps navigate and operate flights, but a captain is the pilot in command of the…
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