It seemed that the worst was over.
After two endless years of the pandemic, flights around the world soared again this summer, millions of people packed their bags and went to airports everywhere in search of new destinations, reunions and adventures.
The airlines, one of the main affected by the covid quarantines with thousands of canceled flights, planes without passengers and massive layoffs, recovered again and some even reported their first profits since 1200.
However, a new crisis was in sight.
With the arrival of summer, airline supply has fallen below demand and many companies have had to cancel flights, thousands of travelers have been stranded in airports for days and some have even been unable to receive their luggage for weeks.
They have called it “the Ar Magedon of the trips“.
And it is that the industry faces a notable personnel crisis, which has led to some airports in the world, such as Heathrow, in London, to ask companies to reduce their flights because they cannot cope with the number of passengers.
And in the midst of the lack of people to carry luggage, planes with few flight attendants and even record accumulations of suitcases in airports, a large part of the airlines have also been left without pilots, which has forced hundreds of flights to be grounded.
Greatest threat
For many industry analysts and executives, this is the most serious challenge they face.
“The shortage of pilots is the biggest threat to the industry that I have witnessed since the 11 September“, he recently told the US Congress the executive director of Mesa Air Group, Jonathan Ornstein.
And while the lack of flight commanders has affected the industry around the world, in the United States they have felt it particularly.
The main airlines there have announced plans to contract between ,000 Y ,000 this year and in 2023, and approximately 8,11 in 2024.
Some have even had to lower or modify their requirements or look for pilots in other nations: Frontier Airlines is Hiring in Australia, Delta Air Lines has eliminated some of its requirement to hire flight commanders and others, like American, have started using buses for journeys that were previously made by planes.
But what? What is behind this situation?
- The boom of new airlines that take advantage of the “golden opportunity” in the current aviation market (and which ones have emerged in Latin America)
A long crisis
As explained to BBC Mundo by Stuart Fox, Director of Technical Operations and Flight of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) the current lack of pilots is a problem that has been manifesting itself since before the pandemic.
“In the long term, a pilot deficit has always been predicted, given that there will be a greater demand for passengers than it will require more pilots and there is also likely to be an increase in retirement d and pilots in the future”, he says.
Since 2016, Boeing had predicted that the global aviation industry would require 90,000 new drivers up to 2035, while Airbus considered that in the same period about half a million of them would be necessary.
When and how will airlines fly again in the world and in Latin America
But according to Fox, then the pandemic aggravated and made more immediate a situation that was already visible to come.
“Certainly, the cause of the current crisis is the pandemic and, due to the increase in demand, it has they are in need of more pilots”, explains the IATA expert, who sees the current crisis as a “short-term” problem.
“Given the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, airlines had to implement programs such as promoting the early retirement of pilots or personnel cuts. That caused the short-term demand that we see at the moment, which has been basically caused by the covid crisis,” he says.
And although much was said about this situation in the US, countries around the world experienced a similar situation.
To give you an idea, according to data from the Australian Federation of Air Pilots, around 19% of its members were laid off during the pandemic.
An expensive career
For years, large airlines around the world, mainly in the Middle East and Asia, have developed a fierce competition in which they offer great incentives to pilots to work for them.
Large carriers have also started hiring from smaller ones, which has made many regional airlines among the hardest hit, both in the US and in the rest of the world.
And it is that beyond the pandemic, the preparation required to fly an airplane in most countries is not only highly demanding, but also extremely expensive ( training for less than a year for a basic license can cost more than $90,11 dollars), which prevents it from becoming an accessible profession for the majority.
In some countries, such as In the United States, some previous sources of recruitment have also been exhausted, such as the armed forces used to be: the use of drones has led to the number of military recruiting ibe flight training as a pilot has decreased in recent years, according to official data.
Given this situation, the passage of time has also taken its toll: many pilots have retired and, only in the United States United, more than % of pilots will reach retirement age within five years, according to data from the Regional Association of Airlines.
Desperate measures
Throughout the world, companies are looking for measures to try to remedy this situation.
“Airlines have been addressing this need in many ways, including creating new pilot training programs, improving recruiting efforts, leveraging existing communities to increase diversity (gender and race) and the implementation of programs to address financial barriers,” he tells BBC Mundo Hannah Walden, from Airlines for America, who represents the largest US airlines.
And it is only in that country, which has one of the most restrictive and severe laws, that several legislators have even proposed changing federal laws that limit retirement age or required flight hours, which has been seen as an example of an even more complicated global situation.
In some countries, such as India, some airlines have even started hiring retired pilots due to the lack of staff who are also living.
Various unions have also denounced that this situation has led many pilots to work overtime and put up with ar greater stress conditions.
“It’s a struggle every day out there. Our fatigue rates reflect that,” Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, assured the US media.
In the first five months of this year , the union assures that it received three times more reports of fatigue and exhaustion in pilots than a year before.
A spokeswoman for the Airline Pilots Alliance (ALPA), the largest union of its kind in the US assured BBC Mundo that this type of situation, together with the request for measures to reduce flight hours to join certain airlines or increase the retirement age, could affect air safety.
“While we agree that we can do more to help make the pilot profession available to all, ALPA opposes any attempt to lower safety such as raising the retirement age from pilots and any attempt to use a false narrative to cut off service or reduce safety,” he said.
- The pilot of 19 years she became the woman youngest to complete around the world alone
- Do you already know our YouTube channel? Subscribe!
Fox assures that it is still early to have an idea of when this problem will be solved or if its repercussions will be greater in years to come.
But executives from some large airlines estimate that the situation could last for more than five years.
“The shortage of pilots for the industry is real, and most airlines simply will not be able to meet their capacity plans because there simply are not enough pilots, at least not for the next five years or more,” Scott predicted. Kirby, CEO of United Airlines.
Now you can receive notifications from BBC Mundo. Download the new version of our app and activate it so you don’t miss out on our best content.
523071340