United kjøper flyskole og starter ab initio trening - Cut Lewis

Ab initio: Trening fra bunnen av.

How bad is the pilot shortage? United is buying a flight school.


The unusual step-the first time since the early '60s United has recruited pilots off the street-is part of a broader hiring plan by the Chicago-based airline, which also aims to diversify its pilot ranks with more women and minority hires.

United Airlines is taking an unusual step to deal with a worsening pilot shortage: It's buying a flight school.

The airline said it's purchasing Westwind School of Aeronautics in Phoenix to tackle a talent pipeline problem that it will face for at least a decade, as baby boomer pilots retire en masse. United expects to hire 10,000 pilots by 2029.

United, the country's second-largest airline, will turn Westwind into its own Aviate Academy, which will be able to graduate 300 students per year with 250 hours of flying experience, or a general-aviation instructor qualification, which is generally the minimum standard to start the journey toward becoming a commercial pilot.

While the program can take students with no flying experience, most will likely have a basic pilot's license. Still, it's the first time since the early 1960s that United has recruited pilots off the street.

"For years, airlines have been talking about the retirement cliff," says Joe Schwieterman, a professor at DePaul University who specializes in transportation. "They've reached it."

United, like most of the big carriers, has no problem finding pilots. It's the regional carriers they rely on to feed the mainline aircraft pilots and passengers that are feeling the squeeze.

"We'll hire 1,000 pilots this year," said Captain Curtis Brunjes, United's managing director of pilot strategy. "Regionals will hire two times that."

United didn't say how much it's spending to acquire the flight school, but the Chicago-based airline says the investment makes sense, given the signing bonuses its regional partners are paying to hire pilots. Students graduating from flight schools with 250 hours are being offered signing bonuses of about $20,000 a year, says Ryan Phillips, chair of the aviation and transportation department at Lewis University in Romeoville, which has a flight school.

"It's an interesting idea, for sure," Phillips said of United's move. "They're creating their own pipeline. All the airlines are trying to tackle the problem in their own way."

Buying a flight school is part of a broader hiring plan by United, which also aims to diversify its pilot ranks with more women and minority hires.

"It will give us control of our pipeline," said Captain Bebe O'Neil, who runs United's Aviate program, a recruitment effort launched in October. "We want to cast as wide a net as we can."

United didn't offer detailed demographics on its roughly 13,000 mainline pilots, but fewer than 10 percent are women.

People who make it through the Aviate recruitment program are offered a fast track to becoming United pilots. The new Aviate flight training academy would serve as a starting point for those recruits who haven't been to a university or commercial flight training school.

Pilots who graduate from flight school with 250 hours of flying time would work as instructors elsewhere, and once they get 1,000 to 1,500 hours in the cockpit they would be eligible to move to a United Express regional carrier, then fly for 2,000 hours and at least two years before joining the mainline.

For pilots who remember waves of furloughs after Sept. 11, 2001, and SARS in 2003, which lasted years, the reversal of vocational fortunes is surprising. Pilot pay at some regional carriers has doubled to about $50,000 in the decade since the fatal crash of a Colgan Air jet sparked an outcry. Mainline pilots at United start out at a base pay of about $90,000 per year.

Still, becoming a pilot isn't cheap. Getting a basic pilot's license can cost $10,000, and $80,000 to reach instructor certification. That doesn't count tuition for those who attend flight school while going to college.