United expects to cut more routes due to pilot shortage

United will likely cut more routes to secondary cities in coming months due to an acute shortage of pilots forSpeaking during the company’s fourth-quarter 2021 earnings call on 20 January, United chief commercial officer Andrew Nocella said the airline has cut service to 20 cities so far and that more route reductions are coming. “We know the impact on these communities, we alert them ahead of time, we know it’s a big deal for them,” he says. “However, we are facing a pilot shortage on our regional aircraft – not on our mainline aircraft – and we expect that shortage to continue for a while, including for the rest of 2022. We do expect there will be a few more communities that we will have to remove from the network. We are still working out those details,” Nocella adds. He says United has “a lot of aircraft that we will under-utilise for the foreseeable future”. Executives say the problem is “not unexpected” and will continue for “for the next year or two”. The coronavirus pandemic accelerated pilot retirements in 2020 as airlines cut costs, shed employees and put aircraft into long-term storage. Now, as demand rebounds and the industry quickly returns to pre-pandemic levels, cracks have opened in airlines’ planning and staffing.<br/>