It's getting a lot more lucrative to become a pilot
By Marielle Segarra
December 26, 2017 | 9:30 AM
Zack Tusing is training to be a pilot. One of his favorite places to fly is a spot along the Hudson River, overlooking New York City. Sure, he says, it’s a little scary hovering next to skyscrapers and being suspended over water in a one engine Cessna.
"Other than that, it’s really cool," Tusing said. "Central Park is cool to see. Being right at the top of One World Trade Center is cool. You can see Yankee Stadium."
Tusing is 19, and he has been training to be a pilot since he was a toddler.
"When I was three or four, my dad would hook up, I think it was a Microsoft Flight Simulator 1995, on the computer, and I would just try to get the plane on the ground somewhere without crashing," he said.
When he took his first actual flying lesson at 13, the outlook for pilots wasn’t great. It was 2011, and there had been a decade of turmoil in the airline industry — with downturns after 9/11 and during the recession. About 10,000 pilots were furloughed.
Entry-level pilot salaries were about $22,000 a year on average, according to the aviation advisory firm FAPA. Meanwhile, training could cost five times that, says Wendy Beckman, who runs the aerospace department at Middle Tennessee State University.
"You heard stories of people on food stamps and living at home and sleeping in crew lounges," Beckman said.
Infinity Flight Group, a flight training school, opened a few years ago with a three-plane fleet. Now it has 25 planes and it's having trouble keeping up with demand.
Tusing didn’t want to give up his dream. In fall 2016, he enrolled in Penn State Abington’s business program, with plans to get his pilot’s license after graduation.
But there was a shift happening in the airline industry.
There’s a mandatory retirement age for pilots: 65. That time has come for a lot of them, says Gregory John, who runs Infinity Flight Group, the pilot training school Tusing attends.
"It's estimated [that in] the next 10 years, half of all pilots will be retiring from major airlines," John said.
The big airlines, like American and United, have hired more than 4,000 pilots this year — an eightfold increase from just five years ago, according to FAPA.
A lot of those pilots come from the regional airlines. That’s left the regionals with a pilot shortage. Last year, 35 percent of available pilot jobs at those airlines went unfilled, according to the Regional Airline Association. The regional airlines have had to up their game. They've more than doubled pilot starting pay, to almost $50,000 a year on average, according to FAPA. Regional airlines are also offering signing bonuses of up to $31,000, and they're helping to pay for flight training.
"They'll help pay for some of your flight training," John said. "They'll guarantee you a job."
Some are also relaxing their preference for a college degree. So in January, Zack Tusing dropped out of college to train as a pilot full time. Tusing has flown about 200 hours so far; he needs 1,500 to get hired at a commercial airline. He says it’ll probably cost him $80,000 all told. But he sees a real future as a pilot.
RELATED
Desperately need pilots? Try paying them more
7 tips for solving your airline customer service problems
Small airports are trying to cash in on big-city travelers
It's getting a lot more lucrative to become a pilot
Desperately need pilots? Try paying them more
By Gigi Douban
September 16, 2016 | 7:15 AM
Two American Airlines subsidiaries announced plans to boost the starting pay for regional pilots, in some cases increasing pay by 56 percent. On top of that, the regional carriers, PSA Airlines and Envoy Air, will offer bigger sign-on and retention bonuses, all in the hopes the move will ease a pilot shortage.
Why the shortage? It’s way harder than it used to be to become a regional pilot. And the pay is terrible.
"There are plenty of new-hire pilots at regional airlines who are eligible for public assistance, for food stamps for example," said Gregg Overman, communications director for the Allied Pilots Association. Some regional pilots, he said, get paid less than $18,000 a year. Hence, the shortage.
"All airlines are just having a hard time right now finding enough pilots to fly the smaller planes at the pay rates that they’ve been paying," Seth Kaplan, editor at Airline Weekly, said.
New pilots for Envoy and PSA can make $58,000 a year. Kaplan said the airlines had to pay more or cut regional flights — the flights that help fill the seats on big planes.
"You need to be able to get people from Omaha to Chicago, to fill that flight from Chicago to Tokyo," he said.
Desperately need pilots? Try paying them more
Pilot shortage grows
But while Hawaii service flourishes, less glamorous regional airline markets throughout the U.S. are likely to continue suffering in 2018 as a nationwide pilot shortage gets worse.
The shortage has been a key factor in 20 U.S. airports losing commercial air service since 2013. Another 26 airports have lost at least 75% of departures, according to the Regional Airlines Association.
The shortage, which transportation economist Dan Akins said numbered 500 pilots in 2017, has also led to closures, bankruptcies and operational problems for regional airlines. In the most recent prominent example, Alaska Airlines’ regional subsidiary, Horizon, was forced to reduce its flight schedule from September through at least January. In September, Horizon canceled a whopping 6.5% of its flights.
With retirements at major U.S. airlines ramping up, Akins projects that the U.S. commercial airline industry will require 2,000 more pilots than will be available in 2018.
“Ramifications will be further reduction of regional operations, reduction or elimination in service to an increasing number of smaller communities, more carrier failures/bankruptcies, pressure on military to retain existing pilots for national defense and perhaps the start of airline funding of pilot training,” Akins said.
The shortage has led to various proposals in recent months to increase the legal avenues for aspiring pilots to obtain a commercial license with less than the required 1,500 hours of flight time.
Akins said that even if such changes are made, the shortage is sure to persist. “The lag time to train pilots is years,” he said.
Airlines: What the year ahead holds for the industry