Shortage of pilots - USA - Curt Lewis

Fewer flights out of Tulsa expected due to pilot shortage

In 2015, airlines were seeking 4,000 pilots, but were only able to hire 2,000 from among 12,000 applicants. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, File)

Airlines will not restore successful summer flights with high passenger load factors from Tulsa to two cities this summer.

The fewer flights are due to the lack of pilots, said Jeff Mulder, director of the city's airports.
Tulsa is not alone. Among the cities reporting the same problem are Peoria, Illinois, Elmira, New York and Tyler, Texas said Mulder, who is also chairman of the American Association of Airport Executives composed of more than 5,000 members from small general aviation fields to the nation's largest.

Mulder said United Airlines will not resume the Tulsa-to-Washington, D.C. flight it operated with success last year and Delta Air Lines will halt its summertime flight to Minneapolis for the same reason, he said.
Congressional action several years ago combined with retirements - an estimated 16,000 by the nation's four largest airlines by 2022 - is generating the shortage.

In an effort to boost airline safety, Congress increased the amount of hours a pilot needed to fly before being certified by the Federal Aviation Administration as an air transport pilot.
It went from 250 flight hours to 1,500, an increase of 500 percent, before an airline could put a new pilot in the right, or co-pilot's, seat, Mulder said.

The added hours not only increase the time it takes before someone can be certified, but also increases the cost of learning to fly.

In 2015, Mulder said airlines were seeking 4,000 pilots but were only able to hire 2,000 from among 12,000 applicants.

Both Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology, which has been training pilots in Tulsa since 1929, and ATP, which operates in Tulsa and a number of other cities, said it can take as long as three years to be airline flight eligible.