When unions can push for more money.
By Karen Walker
Americans have eagerly returned to flying this summer. Airports are buzzing, planes are packed—often to the point where airlines are offering incentives for people to take a later flight. After two-and-a-half years of a devastating impact from the pandemic, the enthusiasm for air travel—which skeptics said would never return to its pre-2020 growth trajectory—is reassuringly strong for the air transport, tourism and convention industries. US airlines, as a collective, are projected by IATA to be the first in the world to return to profitability this year. But the operational side of the recovery has been far from smooth. Beginning in spring, as many Americans resumed vacations to sun-spot destinations, airlines have canceled hundreds of flights. The reasons for the chaos are multifold. COVID-19 infections remain widespread, prompting crews and ground staff to call in sick at late notice. Weather-related and air traffic control congestion delays are back in force. There’s also much discussion about a national pilot shortage. But there’s strong disagreement on whether such a shortage exists. The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which represents more than 65,000 pilots at 40 airlines in the US and Canada, is adamant there is not. On the contrary, ALPA says, nearly 8,000 certificated commercial pilots were produced in the 12 months up to June, which president Joe DePete says is a record. When Delta Air Lines was forced to cancel hundreds of flights over the big Memorial Day holiday weekend at the end of May, its pilots issued a public letter to customers saying they were “disheartened” to see their travel plans disrupted, but pilots were “working on our days off, flying a record amount of overtime.” In line with ALPA’s messaging, Delta pilots implied that the problem lay with poor management and a potential willingness to compromise safety. “We will continue to go above and beyond to ensure the integrity of the operation. Delta’s management needs to do the same before you lose confidence in the Delta brand,” the pilots’ letter stated. ALPA accuses airlines of making fictitious claims about a pilot shortage “to distract from their profit-first business decisions to cut service.” It should hardly surprise anyone that airline management teams are highly focused on a return to profit. Collectively, the world’s airlines have lost more than $200 billion since early 2020. Only billions of dollars of congressional aid kept US airlines in business and their employees on the payroll.
Regional carrier disparity As demand for air travel surged back, pilot unions have undoubtedly seen an opportunity to address a long-standing disparity between the salaries of pilots at the major airlines and those at the regional carriers. For many pilots, being hired by a regional airline is regarded as a first rung on the ladder to a far more lucrative career at a major. It’s at the regional airline level where the shortage of pilots is most keenly felt. Those airlines are seeing their pilots transition to the majors as the pandemic opened up opportunities when senior pilots left. Those younger pilots are the future of ALPA and the other major unions, and here was a chance to demonstrate the career progression track to which most aspire.
Perhaps the most telling part about the insistence of ALPA and other large US airline pilot unions that there is no pilot shortage is their resistance to one simple idea: raise the age cap at which pilots must retire.
In a tight supply-and-demand market, the unions have also secured significant new compensation terms for pilots at some regional carriers, notably Envoy Air and Piedmont Airlines, which are both American Airlines subsidiaries. ALPA this year negotiated a raise in base pay of about 15% between 2024 and 2029 for those pilots and, in a true eyebrow raising coup, a supplementary 50% premium between now and August 2024. Altogether, pilots at both airlines will earn nearly 60% more on average than the next best-paying regional carrier. That is putting huge pressure on other regional carriers to significantly change their cost structures and find the money to keep their pilots. With their pandemic debt and much higher fuel costs than in 2019, that’s a tough call and an impossible choice for some airlines, which are instead cutting service to small communities. Some regionals are pursuing other options. SkyWest Airlines is seeking authority to operate a new subsidiary, SkyWest Charter, as a Part 135 airline. This would allow it to place first officers with 250 flight hours in the cockpit versus the 1,500-hour minimum under Part 121 requirements that SkyWest and the majors operate under. In a different approach with the same end goal, Republic Airways is seeking FAA permission for a new restricted pathway program that would allow graduates of its ab initio, closed-loop LIFT Academy to become first officers with 750 flight hours, in line with requirements for military pilots. ALPA claims such moves would “roll back the safety regulations” and has filed complaints with the US Department of Transportation against both carriers. The airlines have pushed back strongly on that notion (and what airline would deliberately risk making itself less safe?) SkyWest says those who are resisting its “herculean efforts to continue providing service to [small] communities are worried about one thing and one thing only: preserving the pilot shortage.” Republic CEO Bryan Bedford said the long-term pilot shortage was “a growing crisis that threatens to eliminate air service to 90 million Americans in small and mid-sized cities” and that his airline’s proposal was supported by “years of data to produce higher-performing airline pilots.”
Pilot age cap Perhaps the most telling part about the insistence of ALPA and other large US airline pilot unions that there is no pilot shortage is their resistance to one simple idea: raise the age cap at which pilots must retire. Currently in the US, that is when a pilot reaches 65. The cap has been lifted before, from 60 to 65 in 2007, and it would need a law change for a further raise. Some pilots think a 68-year cap makes sense and would help mitigate the gaps. There’s some support for the idea in Congress, where the average age of a senator is just over 64 and several are much older.
“Congress should just do it,” a Boeing captain at a major airline wrote to ATW. “Have a hearing, bring in FAA medical doctors to tell Congress what they see coming through their offices. I’m 64 and will be forced out next year. We went from 60 to 65 without batting an eye; what’s the problem? “There is a pilot shortage, I don’t know why my union says there isn’t. Our airline is hiring as fast as we can, 200 per month last I heard. But they still have to go through training and initial operational experience before they are released to the line. We still have retirements. We still have new airplanes coming on the property. We lost 1,700 pilots to early retirement.” Another pilot, a captain at American Airlines, is actively campaigning to get the age cap lifted. Dan Goebel, who is due to retire in November, founded the Coalition for Airline Pilots Age 68 Retirement Campaign. Goebel, speaking with ATW on the Window Seat podcast in July, is also adamant there is a shortage and he’s clear on why the unions don’t want a debate on raising the age cap. “It's the fear of stalled career progression among the younger pilots. … Our whole work frame is based on seniority. It's the holy grail,” he said. The US 65-year cap is not universal. Canada has no age limit and several countries have rules that allow commercial pilots to fly up to the age of 70. Goebel acknowledges that even if the US cap could be raised overnight, it would not stop all the flight cancellations that are being endured this summer. “But it will certainly mitigate them,” he says. “We're literally losing thousands of pilots a month right now, because a lot of us were hired during the eighties boom. That will taper off after a couple of years because we'll all stream out. It's not going to be a problem. And that'll give the younger, newer pilots time to come in and train.” For now, however, the unions seem more focused on maintaining the leverage that the travel surge and labor supply-and-demand imbalance is giving them at the bargaining table. The passenger has no say in those negotiations.
Listen to the Window Seat podcast with Capt. Dan Goebel.