From the results of the pandemic, it is no news that airlines have experienced dismantling across the board. However, with the summer season arriving and vaccinations rolling out, the airline industry is starting to revive throughout the country.
Various airlines are handling the bounce back differently, from purchasing new aircraft, training new pilots, and adding new flight staff. Major airlines such as American and Delta are actively seeing glimmers of recovery, and despite the devastating losses in the past year, CEO of Airlines for America, Nick Calio, remarked that “We’re hopeful that by the end of the year we will break even.”
Discount airlines such as Spirit and Frontier have already started the hiring process for new trainee airline pilots, with plans rolling out as soon as April. Even for spring break, demand for travel was already going on an upwards slope, and future summer booking patterns have only amplified. On the other side of things, United Airlines recently announced that they were upsizing their order for Boeing 737 Max planes in order to “help position us to meet the demand we expect to see in 2022.”
At the end of the day, there is a large global pilot shortage projected in the next couple of years, one of which is already starting to fall true. According to ABC news, “There could be more than 12,000 unfilled jobs across the country by 2023, according to management consulting firm Oliver Wyman. The firm projects a global gap of 34,000 open positions by 2025.” The pilot shortage from releases during the pandemic has left a large gap in pilots that are in the retiring window versus aviation training. Retired pilots are exiting the airlines faster than flight training completion, resulting in the extension of a shortage that was prominent pre-COVID. Thousands of pilots will very soon be in demand once the airlines are grounded, and instead of trained pilots pursuing airlines, it could very well be the other way around.
