American Airlines has parked 100 jets due to pilot shortage

A shortage of pilots from retirements and pandemic cutbacks has pressured Fort Worth-based American Airlines to park about 100 of its smaller regional jets, even amid sturdy summer time passenger demand.

“There is a supply and demand imbalance right now and it really is within the regional carrier ranks,” American Airlines CEO Robert Isom mentioned Friday on the Bernstein Strategic Decisions investor convention in New York. “We have probably 100 aircraft or almost 100 aircraft that aren’t productive right now, that aren’t flying.”

Isom’s feedback come amid hovering airfare costs as vacationers are keen to get out after two years of pandemic restrictions and as airways work to get again to pre-pandemic flying ranges. Nearly each airline within the business is going through comparable points with struggles to substitute pilots and different key employees, although a number of are forecasting file revenues.

Airlines would love to reap the benefits of rising ticket costs from excessive shopper demand. Airline ticket costs for summer time journey are up about 48% in contrast with 2019, in accordance to journey website Hopper. That greater than offsets rising gas and labor prices. American upped its second-quarter income projections on Friday, now anticipating to herald gross sales 11 to 13% greater than throughout the identical interval in pre-pandemic 2019.

The 2022 summer time journey season has seen airways strive to steadiness their very own capability to fly larger schedules versus the chance of meltdowns if operations are stretched too skinny. As carriers akin to Delta, JetBlue and Southwest have reduce flights to deal with decreasing delays, American Airlines is flying a schedule that’s about 20% bigger than its subsequent nearest competitor at Delta.

The largest constraint, Isom mentioned, comes within the variety of pilots American Airlines and its regional carriers are ready to rent. About 1,000 of American’s 15,000 pilots took early retirement packages throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Paired with a lot of pilots slated to hit obligatory retirement age, it hass left carriers akin to American with a deficit of key workers.

American has stuffed that hole by hiring pilots from regional carriers, together with its personal at wholly-owned airways akin to Envoy and Piedmont. In flip, that leaves a shortage of pilots to fly the smaller 50 and 75-passenger jets.

“There are constraints out there in terms of aircraft, there are constraints around pilots from the perspective of the mainline and through training,” Isom mentioned.

American has been ready to make up a number of the cutbacks in flights through the use of bigger regional jets and parking smaller fashions, Isom mentioned.

While that helps carry extra passengers, utilizing larger planes additionally means fewer frequencies, particularly to smaller locations. Regional airways fly 43% of the nation’s flights. in accordance to the Regional Airline Association, and two-thirds of the nation’s airports are solely served by regional carriers.

American and others have elevated pay for regional pilots and have added signing and retention bonuses to assist college students by means of flight college. The financial incentives of jobs that pay greater than $200,000 a 12 months ought to finally entice extra pilots, however it might take a number of years to get the variety of pilots wanted to correctly workers airways, Isom mentioned.

“I see demand for travel,” Isom mentioned. “I see an industry that has been more or less constrained and now trying to say back up and is still facing those constraints.”