Shortage of pilots in the US - No shortage, just low wages says ALPA Intl.

Training rule blamed for pilot shortage

Jacksonville University students Jason Closky, left, and Bill Luce, right, receive a simulator lesson from their professor, Chad Kendall. Photo Credit: Jacksonville University School of Aviation

In 2009, Colgan Air Flight 3407, operating under the banner of Continental Connection, crashed into a house on approach to Buffalo Niagara International Airport, killing all 49 aboard and one person on the ground.

The National Transportation Safety Board would eventually conclude that the crash had resulted from the errors of the plane's two pilots, who did not respond properly to cockpit warnings that the aircraft was about to stall.

The Colgan crash led to a reexamination of training requirements for pilots at regional airlines, resulting in a rule mandated by Congress and the FAA in 2013 requiring that U.S. commercial pilots hold an Air Transport Pilot certificate, requiring 1,500 hours of flight experience. Previously, they had to hold just a commercial certificate, requiring 250 hours of flight time.

Now, as regional airlines and the small airports they serve find themselves increasingly hampered by a pilot shortage, the airlines broadly agree that the 1,500-hour rule is one cause of the problem. The rule, both they and airport representatives say, needs to be modified in order to make entry-level recruitment more manageable.

But the Air Line Pilots Association International (ALPA), the world's largest pilots union, disagrees, asserting that the rule makes commercial air service safer. The real cause of the problems that regional airlines are experiencing, the union says, is not a shortage of pilots but rather the low pay they are offering. Central to the debate are the rule itself and the indisputable fact that regional airlines and airports, for whatever the reason, are struggling.

Among the major regional airline players, SkyWest and Republic Airways, both of which fly routes under contract with American, Delta and United, reduced capacity in 2015 by 6.1% and 11%, respectively, company reports show.

In October, citing pilot shortages, Seaport Airlines stopped flying from Memphis to Tupelo, Miss., and Muscle Shoals, Ala., even though they were under contract with the federal government and receiving subsidies as part of the Essential Air Service program, which was designed to maintain the access of small towns to the aviation network.

Meanwhile, since the second quarter of 2013, 29 small airports in the continental U.S. have lost commercial service, according to the trade group American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE).
In a recent financial report, Great Lakes Airlines said that post-Colgan regulations, including stricter mandates on pilot rest and the 1,500-hour rule, had "created an industrywide shortage of qualified pilots, negatively affecting our level of operations and financial performance."