Like many industries, airlines are experiencing staff shortages. But unlike other industries that can hire new employees and get them working in weeks or even days, airlines require years of costly training to bring aspiring aviators on board.
In other words, there aren’t enough pilots to go around, and there’s no quick fix for a staffing shortage that has been years in the making and compounded by a global pandemic.
Anticipating a pilot shortage 15 years ago, airlines increased the mandatory retirement age for pilots from 60 to 65. “That note has now come due,” said Kevin Kuhlmann, associate chair of the Aviation and Aerospace Science Department at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Covid prompted many pilots to take early retirement because of a lack of flying opportunities. “Those who left the industry because of Covid restrictions only widened the existing gap,” said Kuhlmann.
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Now, with Covid restrictions easing, the demand for air travel has increased exponentially. But faced with pilot and other staffing shortages, many airlines have already canceled thousands of flights in the summer season.
Southwest Airlines cut nearly 20,000 summer flights, according to a report from the Dallas Morning News. Delta is canceling 100 daily departures from airports in the U.S. and Latin America, affecting travel from July 1 to Aug. 7. The carrier published an open letter to customers June 17 acknowledging the labor shortage and customers’ frustrations.
Over Memorial Day weekend, 2,700 flights were canceled, and in a travel surge coinciding with Father’s Day and the Juneteenth holiday, another 19,000 flights across the country were either canceled or delayed.
After graduating from MSU Denver’s Professional Flight Officer Concentration Program and earning her required hours of flight time, Natalie Gramer will follow in the footsteps of her father, a retired commercial airline pilot. Photo courtesy of Natalie Gramer
Hoping to step into the breach is Natalie Gramer, a senior in MSU Denver’s Aviation and Aerospace Science Professional Flight Officer Concentration Program who has dreamed of being a pilot since she was a child.
“I’ve wanted to fly for Delta since I was 12 years old,” said Gramer, whose father retired from the carrier last December.
Source: https://red.msudenver.edu/2022/air-travel-is-a-mess-heres-why/
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