US airlines grapple with having no easy fixes for pilot shortages

US airline executives, who frequently never agree on anything, concur on at least one thing: that the industry faces a pilot shortage. The obvious next step is what to do about it but that is already too late as carriers prune schedules, in part, to mitigate its effects this summer. “What can you do about it?” JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes said of the pilot shortage at a J.P. Morgan investor conference Tuesday. “Well, obviously, focusing on automation and technology … but also creating career paths.” JetBlue benefits from its gateway program, which offers interested applicants various paths from university programs to flight schools to becoming a pilot at the airline. Launched in 2016, Hayes said the four-year program has recently begun producing “significant numbers” of new pilots for the carrier. But in his comment Hayes highlighted the issue airlines face addressing the pilot shortage today: JetBlue’s program takes four years to produce a new cockpit crewmember. Some other programs, including ATP Flight School, claim they can train a new pilot in as little as seven months if they work at it full time. No matter what timeline one uses, what the industry does today to address the problem will take some time before it filters through to actual flights and schedules. Senior executives at both Republic Airways and SkyWest Airlines, the two largest U.S. regional airlines — carriers that operate, for example, American Eagle and Delta Connection flights — do not expect the situation to ease until sometime in 2023. Both have cut their schedules this year as a result. The latest of which was SkyWest’s notification to the Department of Transportation that it would end government-subsidized flights to 29 smaller cities due to a lack of pilots. Regionals are feeling the brunt of the pain. <br/>