As the airline industry faces a “severe and ongoing” shortage of pilots, it appears things are about to get worse for the industry.
According to Faye Malarkey Black, who is the president and CEO of the Regional Airline Association, the industry is bracing to endure a “tsunami of pilot retirements” in the very near future.
Addressing Congress through a prepared statement on Wednesday, she pointed out that already the industry is suffering from a pilot shortage, saying, “Despite soaring passenger demand, a worsening pilot shortage has hindered the regional airline industry’s recovery from the pandemic and is decimating small community air service. This shortage has been growing for decades, driven by the inability to create a sustainable pipeline of new pilots.”
She went on to note the effect of this shortage, pointing out, “Currently, more than 500 regional aircraft are parked, and those aircraft remaining in service are underutilized. The impact has been felt by 308 airports, or almost 72 percent of all U.S. airports. These airports have, on average, lost one quarter of their flights, with smaller airports experiencing a disproportionate impact. This is happening despite industry self-help measures, including dramatic compensation increases and enhancing partnerships and pathways with training providers and larger carriers.”
Surprisingly she also revealed that another issue is the military-to-civilian pilot pipeline, which previously had turned out a steady stream of trained pilots for the airlines to hire. More recently, it has shifted its operational preferences toward drones, and is now producing fewer pilots of manned aircraft, and retaining the fewer pilots it does produce.
She also pointed out that the private sector is not producing new pilots nearly fast enough. “Though 9,491 new pilots qualified in 2022—the highest number on record—it fell far short of the 13,128 hired by just one subset of the airline industry last year,” she noted.
Finally she called attention to the fact that within the next 15 years, at least 50% of pilots today will hit the mandatory retirement age of 65. She said, “Over the next 15 years, nearly 50 percent of the commercial airline workforce will be forced to retire because they will reach the age of 65. There are 70 percent more pilots aged 43 to 64 than aged 21-42. Reflective of the high cost of flight education and training, the “under 30 years of age” cohort of pilots is the smallest at around 8 percent of total pilots. This year, 2,225 pilots must retire. Required retirements will peak in 2029 at 3,750, when pilots aged 58 today turn 65. Thereafter, retirements remain high, staying above 2023’s rate for the foreseeable future.”
