The Atlanta-based airline hopes to return its regional capacity to pre-pandemic levels in summer 2025, driven by improvements in pilot supply, company leadership shared during a third-quarter earnings call on Thursday.

“With hiring and training normalizing, we are growing into our resources and gaining traction on efficiency and initiatives, helping fund continued investments in our people and brand,” said Delta finance chief Dan Janki during the call.

Data from the Future and Active Pilot Advisors (FAPA) shows that Delta has hired 870 pilots so far in 2024, representing an over 50 percent year-over-year change from the same period in 2023. As a whole, the industry follows a similar trend, with major U.S. carriers reporting a roughly 40 percent reduction in hiring numbers overall.

Delta expects industrywide pilot hiring to be more in line with 2019 levels.

“As you know, pilot constraints as the majors were hiring early in the recovery period put a lot of strain on availability of pilot crews for the regional carriers…and we’ve been working very closely with them,” Delta president Glen Hauenstein said.

Hauenstein added that the company expects U.S. airlines to hire approximately 5,000 pilots next year. In 2019, airlines were just 23 new hires short of this figure, according to FAPA’s data.

“So [we are] returning to more normalized pilot hiring across the industry,” Hauenstein said.

This article first appeared on AirlineGeeks.com.

The post Delta: ‘More Normalized’ Industrywide Pilot Hiring Anticipated appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

In a recent social media post on X (formerly known as Twitter), the world’s largest pilots union—which represents more than 77,000 pilots at mainline and regional carriers—pushed back against ongoing legislative efforts to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67.

“The pilot shortage isn’t real,” the ALPA said in the post. “In fact, there’s a surplus of airline pilots. Yet Congress is considering raising the pilot retirement age to 67, which will hurt air travel.”

The union has strongly opposed proposals to raise the mandatory retirement age, citing a slew of potential operational and training issues.

In February, the Senate Commerce Committee voted 14-13 to reject a proposal raising the mandatory retirement age for airline pilots. Both ALPA and the Allied Pilots Association (APA)—which represents American Airlines pilots—say that similar proposals are still on the table in Congress.

The pilot shortage isn’t real. In fact, there’s a surplus of airline pilots. Yet Congress is considering raising the pilot retirement age to 67, which will hurt air travel. Learn what’s at risk from this ill-conceived plan. https://t.co/8J9v5GWC9o #Avation #Airlines #Flying pic.twitter.com/SZ0VVflqPB

— Air Line Pilots Association (@ALPAPilots) April 18, 2024

“The argument hinges on a false claim that there’s a pilot shortage, even though there are more than enough pilots to meet current demand, with plenty more in the training pipeline,” ALPA said in a recent Politico report. “Raising the retirement age from 65 to 67 to address this fake pilot shortage is nothing more than an ill-conceived plan to a fake problem.”

Despite ALPA’s claims, consultancy firm Oliver Wyman expects the gap between pilot supply and demand to be around 13,300 by 2032, which is a 23 percent improvement from the group’s 2022 projections. In 2023, the FAA also issued a record number of Airline Transport Pilots (ATP) certifications.

Regional Airlines Still Struggling

Regional carriers continue to be some of the hardest hit by a shortage of pilots. In a recent presentation, the Regional Airline Association (RAA)—a trade group—said it “can’t believe we have to say this, but an abrupt, temporary hiring disruption —driven entirely by an abrupt aircraft delivery disruption—is not the same thing as fixing the pilot shortage.”

The RAA claims that an aging pilot workforce coupled with aircraft delivery woes at mainline carriers is only temporarily moderating the pilot shortage. Several regional airlines continue to shell out lucrative sign-on bonuses, especially for captains as they look to retain pilots in the left seat.

On Thursday, regional carrier GoJet announced a new bonus structure for direct-entry captains with up to $200,000 “paid out within the first 12 months without any contractual obligations or strings attached.” The company says that captains will have the ability to earn over $400,000 during their first year of employment. ALPA represents GoJet pilots along with aviators at several other regional operators in the U.S. and Canada.

“We can hire first officers. I think almost every regional airline right now has a stack of first officers,” said CommuteAir CEO Rick Hoefling during an October 2023 interview with AirlineGeeks. “The problem is building their time at the same time you’re attriting out captains at a pretty high rate in the industry. We went from a pilot shortage to a captain shortage now in the industry. So the pendulum is starting to move.”

Major airlines—including Southwest, Delta, and United—have slowed or completely halted pilot hiring in 2024.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on AirlineGeeks.com.

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Spirit says the furloughs will take effect on September 1. In late 2023, the airline halted all pilot and flight attendant hiring, citing slower 2024 growth plans and ongoing engine troubles.

Earlier this year, a federal judge struck down the proposed merger between JetBlue and Spirit. The duo terminated their merger agreement in early March.

“I am extremely proud of our dedicated Spirit team for their focus and resilience over the last few years. Unfortunately, we had to make the difficult decision to furlough Pilots given the grounded aircraft in our fleet and our deferral of future deliveries,” Spirit CEO Ted Christie said in a press release.

Aircraft Deferrals

In a move to bolster the company’s liquidity, Spirit says it also plans to defer new aircraft deliveries with Airbus. All aircraft on order that are scheduled to be delivered in the second quarter of 2025 through the end of 2026 will shift to 2030 and 2031, the carrier shared.

Spirit expects this move to improve its liquidity position by roughly $340 million over the next two years.

“This amendment to our agreement with Airbus is an important part of Spirit’s comprehensive plan to bolster profitability and strengthen our balance sheet,” Christie said.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on AirlineGeeks.com.

The post Spirit to Trim Pilot Workforce appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

I half-joked that if John was younger and more junior, I could probably guess with reasonable accuracy whether he was a “McChord C-17,” “Whidbey P-3,” or “Whidbey Growler” guy. This is because even though military pilots make up less than half of my airline’s new hires for the first time in our history, they comprise a surprisingly high percentage of the newbies in the Seattle 737 base. I attribute this to the presence of multiple nearby Air Force and Navy Reserve units, which allow pilots who have recently separated from active duty to continue to fly for the military part-time, building toward the 20 years of service that merits a government retirement and healthcare. The largest of these is the Air Force’s 446th Airlift Wing, with three squadrons of C-17s at McChord AFB in Tacoma, Washington. Up at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, there are three Navy Reserve squadrons: VP-69 (until recently flying the Lockheed P-3 Orion, now converted to the Boeing P-8A Poseidon), VAQ-209 (EA-18G Growler), and VR-61 (Boeing C-40A Clipper).

My limited claim to omniscience perked up John’s attention and he demanded, with a grin, that I take a stab at his background. I knew he was retired military, but his demeanor offered few clues to branch, base, or aircraft. I guessed McChord C-17 and was wrong; in fact, John spent 20 years flying and teaching on P-3s for the Navy and Navy Reserve. But he also spent years in Boeing Flight Test and has been at our airline for six years, which is more than enough to blur the differences not only between military branches and communities but also between military and civilian pilots. Molded by our various backgrounds and experiences, time spent in the airline’s culture tends to erode the edges of all but a few particular individuals.

There was a time, when I was quite young, that my bedroom was adorned with F-16 posters and I had aspirations of military flying. At 12 years old, I was disabused of the notion by an Air National Guard recruiter who noted my substandard eyesight—in those days before LASIK acceptance—barred me from a flight slot in every branch. No matter; I committed to the civilian path and stuck with it.

I had little contact with military aviators at the regional airlines. Horizon had a few Vietnam-era guys on the cusp of retirement, and they were a wild-and-wooly lot even in their dotage. At Compass almost everyone was civilian, but my initial simulator training partner, Rich Metcalf, was a former Air Force F-15C driver who hadn’t touched an airplane in eight years. He had never flown a transport category jet, nor a multicrew airplane, nor one with a glass cockpit or flight management system. Yet for all that, he was magnificent, arguably the sharpest training partner I’ve had in a happy procession of excellent ones.

The major airlines, by their hiring practices, gave credence to the popular notion that military selection and training produced superior pilots, and in Rich I seemed to find terrible confirmation of my inherent inferiority. But then, six years later, I was hired at my current airline, where 95 percent of the captains I flew with were former military aviators. I was startled to find just how similar they were to the pilots I’d known in my decade at the regional airlines. Some were very sharp, others less so; some had natural flying ability, others were wooden; many were kindhearted souls, a few were loudmouthed boors. Every single one made mistakes I’d seen a dozen times before, mistakes I’d made myself. These folks were not superhuman at all; they were working pilots like me. Relieved of my lingering sense of inferiority, I got along famously with almost all these captains and really enjoyed hearing stories of the Ronald Reagan-era military: chasing Russian subs during the Cold War, intercepting TU-95s off the Aleutian Islands, landing on a heaving carrier deck in a typhoon. Often these captains, so used to flying with birds of their own feather, were quite interested to hear my own stories of dark, anxious nights spent alone in the thrumming cocoon of an ancient, overloaded Piper Navajo.

Every once in a while, I’d fly with someone who had never really left the service in their own mind, whose whole identity and ego were wrapped up in their past as a military aviator (most often in the single-seat fighter community). Such captains occasionally earned themselves a private eye roll, but for the most part I indulgently peppered them with questions about their past, to which they predictably rose like a choice trout to a well-presented fly. I received hours of entertaining, most certainly embellished tales out of the deal, plus more than a few free layover beers.

Once I upgraded to captain, I continued to fly with many military pilots, but now they were mostly my age or younger and had been hired within the last few years. Unlike the mostly peacetime Reagan-era captains, these folks spent much of their adult lives at the pointy end of the two-decade “global war on terror.”

The differences are interesting: The egos are smaller, even among fighter jocks, there’s a great deal more diversity, and there’s much more skepticism about the military’s role in the world—and more frank discussion about the highs and lows of service life. I am constantly impressed by the high quality of our new hires, both military and civilian. With rare exceptions, they are extremely sharp individuals and great cockpit companions. They make my job easy. The military pilots, in particular, must learn a great deal in their first months at the airline, especially if they haven’t been flying transport category or multicrew aircraft. Most are very quickly up to speed. I’ve come to realize the airlines’ preference for military aviators isn’t because they’re necessarily superior pilots but because they are predictably trainable in stressful environments. They are used to “drinking through a fire hose.”

A year or two into these pilots’ airline careers, it’s increasingly difficult to tell what branch they came from, even if they continue to fly in the reserves. Another year later, you can’t tell them apart from the civilians. The military pilots have relaxed while the civilians have added some spit and polish. After a few years, most everyone has drifted to a happy medium, which is on the whole a quite good standard—and a big part of the airlines’ enviable safety record the past two decades.

Speaking of which, during our flight to Phoenix, John and I had a eureka moment in which we recalled the details of our previous trip. It was the day of the Christmas bomb cyclone I wrote about in the March issue, with historically terrible weather in Boston, Detroit, and Seattle. John was a fantastic first officer that day, but his cool competence in tough conditions was so utterly normal to my experience that it didn’t make him particularly memorable. This is a great credit not only to John but to all the excellent first officers, military and civilian, with whom I ply the nation’s skies every week. As I near the top third of the seniority list, these folks coming up behind me are becoming the backbone of our airline, remolding our culture in their image. It is a very heartening thing to see.

This column first appeared in the July 2023/Issue 939 print edition of FLYING.

The post Taking Wing: Beyond the Uniform appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Original estimates predicted that it would take years for travel demand to rebound to pre-pandemic levels. In fact, in the first months of the pandemic, the most ambitious estimates indicated that demand would start in 2023. Others projected it might take an additional year or two on top of that.

Airlines responded promptly. Hundreds of airplanes were grounded per airline, amounting to thousands in the United States alone. If American Airlines, the largest airline in the world by fleet size, had grounded a number of airplanes proportional to the drop in demand, they alone would have grounded somewhere between 800 and 900 airplanes; arguably the only thing preventing such a unilateral drop was passenger airlines’ shift to operating cargo flights with their planes to meet the high demand for shipments of medical equipment.

Pictures soon arose of airports where dozens of planes were parked in orderly rows on what would have otherwise been active runways and taxiways, not to be used for over a year. Stories arose of commercial flights with half a dozen people flying on planes built and configured for nearly 200, and some airlines made up the difference by flying fewer flights and blocking middle seats for passenger comfort.

Flight crews also faced challenges. Pilots, flight attendants, and ground service personnel were initially furloughed en masse, eventually able to receive a paycheck because of multiple government bailouts through the CARES Acts.

Still, airlines did not stop trying to find ways to cut their personnel costs, and the cheapest solution they found, considering how long experts estimated the travel downturn would last, was to offer older pilots within a few years of retirement age early retirement packages. After all, some of these pilots would retire before travel would (as estimated) return, so it was beneficial for them to take extra compensation immediately and for the airlines, who would have fewer senior pilots at the top of the pay scale.

That staffing solution was a reasonable idea at the time; all things considered, it was the best thing airlines could do to protect their bottom lines as they prepared for what had all the indications of being a years-long hibernation. For a while, it worked, and, in time, airlines managed to stabilize their situations as best as possible.

Post-Pandemic Travel Rebound

However, in late 2021, something remarkable happened. About two years after the COVID-19 virus was first identified in China, passenger throughput data started trending upward. At first, it was a slow trend. In October 2021, TSA screened 1 million passengers in a day—still a far cry from the 2.5 to 3 million they’d screen every day in 2019, but also the first time more than 1 million passengers flew since U.S. lockdowns began in March 2020.

Data fluctuated up and down around the magical seven-figure mark, but the overall upward trend was undeniable. As time progressed, the industry passed other milestones: airlines arose from financial challenges, airplanes returned to service, routes were reintroduced, and even international travel started to show signs of life again.

And, before anyone could blink, those positive trends started to snowball, and flying returned more rapidly. Soon, every parked airplane was brought back into service. More airplanes were brought out of storage in desert boneyards. But as much as the capacity for travel increased, it still felt one step behind the demand. People wanted to travel so much that airlines even brought back the jumbo jets—the Airbus A380s and Boeing 747s—that they had so recently planned to retire for good.

Airlines have been able to handle aircraft returns to service just fine. What they haven’t been able to plan for quite as well is their staffing.

The Source of Captain Shortages

Remember that the first types of pilots to receive voluntary retirement packages were older pilots. An overwhelming majority of those pilots were captains; they were people who had spent decades building their skills and had reached the epitome of seniority and experience.

Fairly obviously, flights cannot operate without captains. These captains legally serve as the “pilot in command” (PIC), responsible for and the ultimate authority on the safe operation of a particular aircraft. It is their job to oversee the flight to make sure that everything is in order. They make countless decisions to determine that the airplane is airworthy and is capable of making a particular flight safely; that any mechanical discrepancies identified on the ground or in flight are appropriately dealt with; that the routing received from air traffic control is acceptable; and so many other things to make sure that the flight is completed safely and any necessary actions are taken to ensure that safety.

Captain Eligibility

The problem for airlines is that not just anyone can be an airline captain at a major air carrier. Even after a pilot becomes eligible for the license that permits them to fly for these major airlines (which itself requires 1,500 hours and a splattering of other requirements regarding cross country, night, and instrument flight), they need over 1,000 hours as an airline pilot at a major carrier before they can even be considered for a captain position.

“You can’t fly with two first officers,” aviation consultant Robert Mann told Reuters. “You have to have a captain.”

In order to fill the captain positions that were vacated by pilots taking early retirement packages, mainline airlines such as American, Delta, and United needed thousands of captain-qualified first officers (FOs) to upgrade to captain as soon as possible. Many first officers jumped at that chance.

But not every qualified first officer jumped at the opportunity. Some first officers had spent years as second-in-command on a particular fleet type and built up incredible seniority as a first officer. As they neared the end of their careers, these pilots did not want to sacrifice the control they had over their schedules as senior FOs to spend the end of their careers at the bottom of the captain seniority list.

“If I did that, I would’ve ended up divorced and seeing my kids every other weekend,” one United pilot told Reuters, referring to upgrading to the left seat.

Mainline Captain Shortages

This created an issue for major airlines. As quickly as they could upgrade qualified and willing FOs, they still struggled to fill all of the captain vacancies they had. Not only had many captains retired during the pandemic, still more were reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65 and were forced to retire during the travel bounceback. A vicious cycle had begun to make it highly difficult for airlines to fly.

In 2022, for example, United Airlines was unable to fill 50 percent of its captain vacancies because of the FOs’ reluctance to upgrade, amounting to nearly 1,000 captain positions that need to be filled. The same is true in 2023, as in June, the carrier reported that 96 of 198 captain vacancies were still vacant.

“It’s the first time that I’ve ever known it to happen in the airline industry. It is going to impact capacity in the fourth quarter,” CEO Scott Kirby said on an earnings call over the summer.

The airline has 5,900 captains and 7,500 first officers, per its union.

7,000 American Airlines pilots have declined upgrades, per union data obtained by Reuters. American’s union represents over 15,000 pilots.

Mainline vs. Regional Airlines

However, major airlines have one big advantage. To understand it, it’s important to understand the difference between a “mainline” airline and a regional carrier. If a route does not have enough demand to support regular flights from 150- to 200-seat jets, or if it’s worth it to an airline to fly smaller jets more often on a route to maintain competitively flexible schedules, a carrier will outsource to a regional airline to operate those smaller jets.

Only a certain selection of airlines in the U.S. rely on regional carriers. American, Delta, and United are the most visible. Any flight that is branded as “American Eagle,” “Delta Connection,” or “United Express” is operated by a third-party regional operator instead of the main airline. Alaska Airlines also uses regional carriers, though with slightly different brandings: its regional partners fly aircraft that bear both Alaska’s name and the regional’s, such as “Alaska Skywest” for the independent, national regional brand or “Alaska Horizon” for flights operated by wholly-owned subsidiary Horizon Airlines.

Using these regional operators allows major airlines to remain competitive without needing to pay for hundreds of extra planes. Instead, they pay regionals a certain fee per departure, and the regionals handle their own staffing and buy or lease their own aircraft.

Notably, during the pandemic, major airlines reduced the number of regional partners they worked with for this reason; for instance, ExpressJet stopped operating for months after United Airlines cut its contract in favor of another regional partner.

For many reasons, regional airlines are a fascinating case study in airline flying. How pilots view these regional carriers is one of those. With the exception of SkyWest, which operates in all but a handful of U.S. states, regional carriers are called such because they operate within a specific region of the country. With limited exception, Republic Airways operates almost exclusively east of the Mississippi River; CommuteAir, which beat out ExpressJet for United’s business, operates a few routes in the Midwest, Texas, eastern Canada, and the western U.S.; Horizon Air operates only on the West Coast.

This regionality makes these carriers a great option for pilots who want to be able to stay closer to home throughout their careers. However, many more pilots use regional airlines as a stepping stone to make them attractive applicants for major airlines. With time flying multiengine jets at big, busy airports in an airline environment, they can make themselves viable for further career opportunities at the mainline carriers.

The regionals faced the same challenges with more senior captains retiring early during the pandemic and needed first officers to upgrade to the captain position as soon as they were qualified to maintain smooth operations.

“And from a regional perspective, it’s really not a pilot supply issue at this point. It’s more of an issue of having first officers with the amount of time, the thousand hours that they need to graduate from the right seat to the left seat,” American Airlines Group CEO Robert Isom said during a Q3 2023 earnings call last week. He added that American itself isn’t seeing issues with filling captain vacancies, but noted struggles on the regional side. Unlike its competitors, American has three wholly-owned regional subsidiaries, including PSA, Piedmont, and Envoy.

The Captain Shortage at Regional Airlines

However, the regional airlines had an additional pressure. While mainline companies mainly worried about losing pilots to retirement, regionals also had to worry about losing pilots who got jobs at the mainline airlines. And these new hires were not limited only to the big three; regional pilots also leave for low-cost airlines like Southwest, Spirit, and Frontier.

As mainline companies lost first officers to captain upgrades, they suddenly found themselves in desperate need of new first officers to fill the second seat in the cockpit. These new first officers came overwhelmingly from the regional airlines, whether or not they were captains themselves.

Thus, regional airlines found themselves in the same predicament that mainline airlines did: in desperate need of captains and trying as hard as possible to convince first officers to make the switch. There is an additional challenge for them, though. Because of their experience at regionals, new pilots at mainline airlines often meet the legal experience requirements to be captains. As they build experience in a new airplane type with their new employer, they are legally eligible for a captain upgrade as soon as they are senior enough as first officers for the new airline to make the option available.

Regional airlines do not have that benefit. Many of their new hires are eligible to be airline pilots after spending years as flight instructors, aerial survey pilots, or flying for private aircraft owners. These new airline pilots need to fly 1,000 hours at their airline before the company can even think about upgrading them. As captains disappeared to new, better-paying airlines and new pilots came in with no captain-qualifying experience, regional airlines found themselves in a bit of a catch-22: they can’t fill their captain vacancies without qualified first officers, but they can’t get their first officers to be qualified because there are not enough captains to operate the flights that will get those first officers their experience.

Regional Airlines’ Response

While it is easy for mainline carriers to hire first officers that will be ready to upgrade soon—they are, after all, career-destination companies with thousands of applicants from a wide variety of regional, low-cost, and charter airlines—regionals do not have that benefit. They have such an imbalance of captains to first officers that they have been forced to cut upwards of 20 percent of their schedules to prevent mass flight cancellations. This has brought service losses at a significant number of smaller airports.

Regional carriers have offered signing bonuses worth tens of thousands of dollars to pilots who get hired directly as captains. This might be attractive to charter pilots looking to switch to airline flying. Certain types of charter experience meets the 1,000-hour captain experience requirement, and pilots might be attracted to an opportunity where they can build PIC time—such experience is itself very valuable—in multiengine jet aircraft, making them all the more qualified for management jobs (as a line check airman or chief pilot) or a position at a mainline carrier.

Industry-Wide Response

Steps have been taken, of course, to try to remedy these problems. Delta Air Lines announced a major update to its pilot contract in the spring, forcing United Airlines to follow suit over the summer. American Airlines introduced their own contract soon after. Officials say these deals will go a long way toward ensuring the mainline carriers are sufficiently staffed with captains moving forward, though it has yet to be seen how effective the new deals will really be.

Particularly, airlines hope that updates to work/life balance in these new contracts will be strong incentives for pilots to move to the left seat. As previously mentioned, the loss of seniority after a captain upgrade can be a significant turnoff for senior first officers who want to spend time with their families and avoid forced assignments.

“Junior captains are faced with amplified uncertainties in their flight schedules, on-call commitments, and sudden assignments, translating to reduced stability,” says Jainita Hogervorst, director of Aerviva Aviation Consultancy, a Dubai-based aviation recruitment consultancy.

“Such uncertainty in scheduling might trickle down to other issues, such as unsatisfactory work-life balance,” Hogervorst continued. “The evolving work-life balance landscape and societal attitudes towards career encourage a shift in working people’s attitude, pilots included.”

There have also been attempts to lower the minimum experience requirements for new airline pilots and raise the pilot retirement age, both by the federal government and individual airlines themselves. These calls have brought an outcry from flight crews, but their fates have yet to be determined.

“We can hire first officers. I think almost every regional airline right now has a stack of first officers,” CommuteAir CEO Rick Hoefling told AirlineGeeks at the unveiling of the regional carrier’s first Embraer E170 jet last week. “The problem is building their time at the same time you’re attriting out captains at a pretty high rate in the industry.”

“We went from a pilot shortage to a captain shortage now in the industry. So the pendulum is starting to move,” Hoefling added.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) estimates a need for over 350,000 pilots by 2026 to sustain operations and fill captain slots around the world; consultancy firm Oliver Wyman estimates global aviation will be short 80,000 pilots by 2032. This comes after U.S. airlines are on track for record hiring numbers in 2023.

The massive shortage has been a benefit for aspiring pilots, and there has been a significant uptick in new student pilots as well as pilot certificates issued in recent years. The FAA issued thousands of commercial pilot certificates in 2022, and while some of those pilots will return to foreign markets for jobs, the additional pilots will be able to ease some of the burdens that airlines are facing.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on AirlineGeeks.com.

The post Why Airlines Struggle to Keep Captains appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Would you believe that many airline pilots harbor trepidations about operating in the GA environment and have a great deal of respect for good flight instructors? Many of the worries or concerns stem from the fact that airline pilots have been away from the small airplane world long enough to have forgotten the basics or have been absent for years of changes.

Airspace rules have changed. Filing a flight plan has changed. Airplanes have changed. Retired airline pilots are now faced with how to maintain their IFR and VFR proficiency, selecting electronic chart subscriptions, choosing the appropriate medical certificate class, calculating weight and balance, and operating out of nontowered airports, etc. Guidance in selecting and purchasing the appropriate airplane for the desired mission is another topic worthy of mention.

• READ MORE: Webinar Aims to Help CFIs Help Airline Pilots Return to GA

With quality instruction, airline pilots can excel at the flying part, but they need guidance in other areas. And they need guidance in areas specific to their unique fears. Reviewing a  Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge is probably not beneficial. A rusty pilot’s course might be of assistance but may not address the topics that are most concerning.

With a record number of airline pilots retiring over the next few years, many with disposable income that has increased because of favorable salaries, some of these men and women will be considering reengaging with their roots. Empty nester pilots nearing retirement that have eliminated their financial obligations of a mortgage and their kids’ secondary education may also be entering the GA market. All of these folks need flight instructors who have insight to the airline pilot psyche.

Knowing that airline pilots are familiar with the nuances of professional training, the program is tongue-in-cheek dubbed the “GA type rating course.” Gary “GPS” Reeves, a 20-year veteran of specialized flight instruction, and the FAA 2019 Instructor of the Year has teamed up with Les Abend, a retired airline pilot and longtime contributing editor to FLYING.

The Airline Pilot GA type rating course is in the development stage and will involve a reference manual utilizing an entertaining and informative format that should maintain the attention of even the most-seasoned, long-haul airline pilot. Flight and ground instructors will be offered a free Airline Pilot GA type rating online course through Reeves’ website, www.pilotsafety.org

With the primary goal of adding safer pilots to general aviation, we would appreciate your assistance and participation in refining the course. How? It’s simple. Use this hyperlink: https://pilotsafety.org/ga-type-rating. If you’re an airline pilot, click on the two-minute “Airline Pilot Survey” button. The survey is a valuable assessment for course development.

And finally, all pilots can click on the button that links to registration for the NAFI Summit (National Association of Flight Instructors) Tuesday  through Thursday. The airline pilot GA type rating course introduction will be presented on Thursday, October 26, at 10 a.m. EDT. Reeves is offering a $30 discount through his website.

We have a great opportunity to welcome our airline pilots back into the GA world or perhaps greet them for the first time. They will be an asset to safety and  the GA economy. Let’s prepare our flight instructors with the best tools to assist these valued professionals.

The post GA Type Rating for Airline Pilots: Intro at the NAFI Summit appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The presenters are Gary Reeves, 2019 Instructor of the Year, and retired American Airlines pilot and FLYING Magazine contributor Les Abend.

According to Abend, there can be an intimidation factor on both ends of the education spectrum. The CFI may feel intimidated because the person sitting next to them in the cockpit has thousands of hours more than they do, and the airline pilot may be intimidated as they don’t know what they may have forgotten. For starters, the sight picture from the cockpit is different: please don’t try to flare 20+ feet over the runway in a single-engine trainer.

According to Reeves, this program is an open forum for all to discuss how instructors can do five specific things to help the airline pilots come back faster, be more confident, share their experience, and earn their “GA Type Rating.”

The event will be held Wednesday, October 11, 5-6:30 p.m. PDT. Pre-registration is encouraged.

The event will be recorded. For more information visit https://pilotsafety.org/ga-.

The post Webinar Aims to Help CFIs Help Airline Pilots Return to GA appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

While the industry has seen significant peaks and lulls over the years, the current state shows pilot hiring climbing to previously unseen levels, with 2023 forecasted to surpass the hiring that occurred in 2022.

Aircraft manufacturing giant, Boeing, anticipates a global demand of 649,000 new pilots over the next 20 years. The Arlington, Va.-based manufacturer believes the commercial North American sector will need 129,000 pilots, while China and Eurasia will necessitate even more. 

Future and Active Pilot Advisors (FAPA) has tracked pilot hiring with the major carriers since the 1990s. The organization anticipates the hiring trend to continue this year, marking yet another record in the number of pilots hired by major carriers in a year. FAPA categorizes the major carriers as Alaska, Allegiant, American, Atlas, Delta, FedEx, Frontier, Hawaiian, JetBlue, Southwest, Spirit, United, and UPS. Regional carriers and corporate operators are not included in the data detailed below.

Regional carriers will need to continue hiring pilots who meet the Airline Transport Pilot certificate (ATP) requirements or the Restricted Airline Transport Pilot certificate (R-ATP) requirements. Corporate operators have different requirements set forth to hire pilots, however, many hire at the same requirements that regional carriers do. 

Record Hiring

In 2021, major carriers hired 5,426 pilots according to FAPA, with United Airlines hiring the most at 1,280 pilots. At the time, this was the largest number of pilots hired in a single year. 2022 on the other hand brought unfathomable numbers.

Last year, 13,128 pilots were hired by the majors. This represented an increase of 142% in one year. So far in 2023, the major carriers are on track to break that record as well, with FAPA anticipating over 13,000 pilots set to be hired. Through August, 8,920 pilots have been hired, leaving four more months in the year for additional growth. 

Freight Operators Buck the Trend

It is not all positive news though. Cargo giants FedEx and UPS are currently seeing a post-COVID decline in operations. According to ch-aviation, FedEx has accelerated the retirement of the carrier’s MD-11 aircraft with a fleet retirement year of 2028. Trans-Pacific flying is being cut by 30% for the Memphis, Tenn.-based carrier, and overall flight hours are being reduced transforming the company’s operation to have more presence on the ground. FedEx hired two pilots in January of 2023 and zero since. UPS started the year with nine hires, four in February and none since. 

On the flip side, passenger carriers are hiring at rates never before seen. Year-to-date totals for the big three include American Airlines bringing aboard 1545 pilots so far this year, Delta Air Lines with 1790, and United Airlines hiring 1813 pilots. American had the largest class month out of all the carriers, bringing aboard 284 pilots in May alone per FAPA. 

Hiring droughts in the past have correlated with major world events involving a decline in air travel. Immediately following Sept. 11, 2001, carriers furloughed pilots for years without recall. Hiring then resumed after those who had been furloughed had returned, however, some carriers waited longer than others. American Airlines, for instance, hired zero pilots from 2002 to 2012, a period of 10 years.

Many of the carrier’s pilots spent years furloughed awaiting the call to return to the job they had worked years to earn. This was a similar story for those at other carriers during the time period as well. Delta and United did not hire pilots again until 2007, lasting only two years before another year of zero pilots added to the ranks. The post-2007-2008 financial crisis showed 30 pilots being hired across the major carriers in 2009, all of which were by JetBlue.

Looking Ahead

The past two and half years show a very different picture compared to the ones painted just a decade ago. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics believes that between 2022 and 2032, there will be around 16,800 openings for airline and commercial pilots each year over the course of the decade. This number accounts for retirements and attrition across the industry and other workforces. United Airlines alone is expecting to add 10,000 pilots over the course of the decade. 

Major carriers are also addressing one of the largest barriers to entry into the industry: cost. The big three carriers are making strides to bring those without experience in the field into the workforce. Delta Air Lines has partnered with a Florida-based flight school to create the Propel Flight Academy. The carrier is offering financial assistance as well to help students get into the cockpit at an accelerated pace. United Airlines also has its own in-house flight school in Arizona. American has the American Cadet Academy, partnering with CAE to give those without experience a path into an American Airlines cockpit. 

United also just announced a new way for military aviators to transition into the civilian sector. Applicants need not have an ATP certificate, just the minimum requirements to possess one. Scott Kirby, United’s CEO stated “Launching this program is a win-win: our airline gets direct access to some of the best, most talented aviators in the world, and military pilots – and their families – get the time they need to plan their civilian career while still serving.”

While there is no magic ball to query for what the future will hold, the aviation industry needs pilots. 

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on AirlineGeeks.com.

The post U.S. Pilot Hiring on Track to Eclipse 2022 Levels appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The company announced the release of Flight Data Animation Tuesday at the U.K.’s Farnborough International Airshow. According to GE Digital, “The animation provides realistic visual tools to facilitate pilot training and debriefing post-flight to identify compliance and safety hazards.

“Flight data animation can be used to validate and investigate flight events and assist with pilot operational or airport awareness training.” 

The animation module comes from GE Digital partner Applied Informatics and Research Inc. (AIRINC), a Canadian software firm that provides aviation products and data services to the aerospace industry. GE Digital has been working with AIRCINC since February to create the animation tool.

Flight Data Animation can be used to validate and investigate flight events and assist with pilot operational or airport awareness training by using software to build realistic animations of flights down to the replication of cockpit instrumentation and advanced flight path reconstruction.

“Operating our flights in the safest and most efficient manner is our core objective, and we continuously strive to adopt the latest tools and technology to achieve this goal,” says Capt. Hassan AlHammadi, divisional senior vice president of flight operations for Emirates. “We successfully released FlightPulse to our pilots in August 2021. Now we are working on adding the Flight Data Animation module in FlightPulse, and to release this to our pilots in near future. This will further empower our pilots and help them operate their flights in a safe and efficient way.” 

Andrew Coleman, general manager of GE Digital’s Aviation Software business adds, “FlightPulse is designed to provide pilots with insights and information to enable them to make smarter decisions around safety and fuel consumption.”

The post GE Digital Enhances FlightPulse with Flight Data Animation appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

How Airlines Fell Behind 

Airlines are grappling with early pandemic decisions—that now look like missteps—to aggressively trim their pilot workforce through retirements and furloughs. It’s clear that they overcorrected, and now, there are not enough pilots to meet the full force of this year’s summer travel—even though ticket prices have skyrocketed, and capacity is still above pre-pandemic levels. 

With pandemic restrictions no longer in place, staffing shortages mean that airlines can’t keep up. The lack of pilots has caused airlines to park airplanes, trim their summer flying schedules by as much as 15 percent, and cancel flights. That’s not to mention weather cancellations that are precipitated by the summer thunderstorm and hurricane seasons.

Why are there delays at your airport when the weather is clear, blue and 72? Most likely because bad weather in other parts of the country is affecting flights into and out of your area. To learn more, listen to our podcast at https://t.co/X171ci0DLo. pic.twitter.com/3XIHDHHeBG

— The FAA (@FAANews) June 29, 2022

Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg chimed in to encourage airlines to do all they can going into the July 4th holiday to mitigate travel disruption—and not to repeat the Memorial Day weekend debacle in which airlines canceled 2,800 flights and stranded passengers. Increasing public frustration has led to much finger-pointing about why airlines are in this position, as the FAA and carriers blame each other for chaotic flight operations.

Airlines: FAA Is Partly at Fault

In a letter sent to Buttigieg and acting FAA administrator Billy Nolen, the trade association and lobby group Airlines for America (A4A), which represents the major airlines in the U.S., said if there were to be any disruptions, it wasn’t for lack of trying. On the other hand, it said the FAA’s air traffic control network played a more significant role in fomenting disruptions.

“One of our A4A member carriers estimates that air traffic control (ATC)-related issues were a factor in at least one-third of recent cancellations,” said A4A president and CEO Nicholas Calio. He also added that “FAA ATC staffing challenges have led to traffic restrictions under blue-sky conditions,” before requesting a meeting and suggesting that the FAA share its staffing plans ahead of the July 4th weekend “with airlines so we can plan accordingly.”

For its part, the FAA has ramped up the hiring of air traffic controllers, but, similar to criticism from the largest pilot union, ALPA, it says airlines benefited from $54 billion in government funding throughout the pandemic to protect their workforce, but mismanaged that money.

Has Delta Conceded?

Amid the back and forth, getting through the July 4th weekend remains the immediate challenge for airlines. Wanting to stay ahead of the curve and possibly admitting that it wouldn’t be able to keep up, Delta Air Lines [NYSE: DAL] announced that it would give customers the option to change their flights to another time that isn’t the “potentially challenging” July 4th weekend. 

“Delta is expected to carry customer volumes from Friday, July 1, through Monday, July 4, not seen since before the pandemic,” the airline said in the statement. Delta apparently has conceded that its operation is not up to the task. “Delta people are working around the clock to rebuild Delta’s operation while making it as resilient as possible to minimize the ripple effect of disruptions.” 

Big Issues: Pilot Training and Pay

In May, Delta CEO Ed Bastian told investors at a conference that the problem his airline was primarily dealing with was a backlog in pilot training that could take months to unwind. Bastian said, “pilots are a constraint in the system right now, and I think they’ll be a constraint for some time. There are constraints around pilots—we’re hiring 2,000 pilots this year; getting them all through training is a real task.” This echoes the training chokepoint that United [NASDAQ: UAL] and JetBlue [NASDAQ: JBLU] CEOs also said they felt and were trying to address.

To make things worse, pilots are going head to head with their respective management to bargain for better contracts. Recently, 1,300 Southwest Airlines [NYSE: LUV] pilots lined up outside Love Field (KDAL) in Dallas to demand a pay raise. 

Also, off-duty Delta pilots were expected to picket Thursday at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and elsewhere around the country, as they look to negotiate a new contract. While the airline doesn’t expect this to disrupt flights directly, no doubt it’ll require Delta’s management team to widen their focus to include labor relations in addition to daily operations.

Today, the @Delta_Pilots are picketing systemwide. For those pilots who can't make it, please use our virtual toolkit to show your solidarity with your fellow Delta pilots https://t.co/cCCRweq89M#DeltaPilots #ALPAPilots #DeltaPilotContractNow #DeltaPilotsReadyToStrike #HatsOff pic.twitter.com/94my6p5mNe

— Delta Air Lines Pilots (@Delta_Pilots) June 30, 2022

American Airlines [NASDAQ: AAL], the largest carrier—and the most likely to experience disruptions—preemptively raised pay for its regional pilots at Piedmont, PSA, and Envoy by 50 percent to keep its pilots in place. Envoy then said it would pay pilots who flew on their days off in July an additional 300 percent in the hopeof limiting the number of flights it would have to cancel.  
So, the stage is set for a busy summer period for the airlines. All things considered, the good thing is that travel is back, and the airline industry is on a robust march to profitability again. On the other hand, the perks of tapping into general and business aviation travel for more convenient travel couldn’t be more clear.

The post A Summer of Air Travel Disruption Ahead? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.