Consider This from NPR - Summer Travel Is Chaos Right Now. Here's Some Reasons Why

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

As many countries have loosened their COVID-19 restrictions and reopened their borders, the demand for travel is high. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of flights getting canceled and delayed on a daily basis across the globe. A shortage in airline staff, especially pilots, is a big reason why. Pilots took to the picket lines this week to protest this shortage. They are also frustrated by stalled contract negotiations and strained pilot schedules.NPR's Ari Shapiro spoke to Captain Casey Murray from Southwest Airlines Pilots Association about what has caused this shortage.Airline companies are having to get creative in their efforts to recruit, hire and retain pilots. NPR's David Schaper reports about how one major airline opened its own flight school. Additional reporting in this episode came from Amanda Andrews at George Public Broadcasting.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at iu.edu. If you've traveled recently and dealt with cancellations and major delays, let's commiserate together. In the span of a month, I've had three flights canceled on three separate airlines to London, Boston, and just this morning to Ottawa, Canada. Summer travel is chaos right now. For thousands of Americans this week, there are summer getaways landing them in an airport Armageddon. I was in the airport for

over five hours, maybe six. We've been stuck on the tarmac for hours at a time. We actually de-planed, got back on the plane and de-planed again. U.S. Transportation Department is threatening to penalize airlines if they don't improve their performance by the 4th of July. I really feel that. Well, despite all this, there are estimates that say about 12 million Americans will be flying this Fourth of July weekend. Travelers, make sure to pack some patience. Just today, a little over 2,000 flights have already been canceled across the globe, according to FlightAware. are around and in some cases above summer of 2019 levels before the pandemic. But travel industry analyst Henry Hardevelt of Atmosphere Research Group says the number of flights being offered remains below pre-COVID levels. It's going to be a Hunger Games-like battle to get the fares you want, the flights you want. And the concern I have is that there's absolutely no wiggle room, no flex room

in the industry if and when something goes wrong. And it's summertime. Something goes wrong on a regular basis. And that doesn't even explain why flights that have been booked for months would suddenly be called off at the last minute. Well, one reason is because of staffing shortages at airports, especially amongst pilots. Airlines have scaled back the number of flights they're going to operate this summer in order to have a buffer of extra pilots, extra flight attendants, and extra airplanes ready in case you get a bad storm or something else that disrupts their operation. These shortages are causing airlines to cut service to certain areas. Take American Airlines, for example.

They'll stop servicing Toledo, Ohio, Islip in Ithaca, New York, and Dubuque, Iowa, starting in September. Over 70% of the nation's airports have less air service now than they did going into the pandemic. Faye Malarkey-Black is the CEO of the Regional Airline Association. She says the pilot shortage is affecting big and small airports alike.

For communities in this game of musical chairs, there just aren't enough chairs. Consider this. The demand for travel is up this year and airlines are trying to meet that demand even with inconsistent schedules, fewer flights, and fewer pilots. Those in the cockpit say the pool of pilots is only going to get smaller.

From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Friday, July 1st. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. Customers can tell you just how much the pilot shortage is affecting their flights right now. Traveler Sharon Williams is hoping to return home from Atlanta to Milwaukee on a Delta flight, but she's expecting delays.

She blames the airline. I think what they've got to do is something with management. They've got to do better with managing the pilots and the scheduling. I think everybody, we're back traveling now, and they're ill-prepared. Totally ill-prepared. Seems pilots are just as fed up as airline customers when it comes to all the summer travel chaos. We are out here today over 400 strong in Atlanta alone, over 1,200 strong in our whole airline across all the bases. Off-duty pilots from Delta Airlines headed to the picket line this week at airports across the country,

including at Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, the country's busiest airport. Picketing and holding signs like these. We're going to show you the row here. We've got ready to strike. Industry-leading contract now. Dozens of pilots lining up. The pilots were picketing over stalled contract negotiations and strained pilot schedules. Captain Jason Ambrose of Delta Airlines was out on the lines this week. We have four pillars in this contract. It's going to obviously be compensation, the quality of life, the scheduling issues we've discussed, as well as retirement and

an increase in our retirement, and as well as job protection. Other airlines stood in solidarity with Delta pilots, including Frontier and Alaska. It's time for a contract. The company is not moving at the pace that is needed to get us an agreement that these pilots have earned through their hard work. So that's why they're here. That's frustrating. This is a record turnout. This is great to show. Send that signal to the company. It's time for them to bargain with us in good faith. Pilots aren't the only ones making demands for improvements.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called for a virtual meeting with U.S. airline CEOs earlier this month. He urged them to ensure summer flight schedules are followed after the surge in flight cancellations. From the perspective of the pilots, this is a problem airlines should have anticipated. We kind of forecast that this was going to be an issue. The pandemic sort of gave us a short-term reprieve, but the real problem was still there. And then having thousands of pilots take early outs, it put us in a very precarious situation. And now all of the airlines are trying to catch up. Captain Casey Murray is president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association. I asked him exactly why the number

of pilots is shrinking. Right now, we're at an inflection point in the industry. All of the major airlines are negotiating new contracts. A lot of prospective pilots really have their choice of where to go. So it's going to be whoever offers the most competitive contract, the most lucrative contract, you know, it's kind of everything's coming together at once. But when you look at things like, you know, pilot school, training programs, things like that, are there enough people getting the skills necessary to eventually become a pilot six months a year, five years from now? Well, the short answer is no. I like to call it cradle to career. And there aren't enough people entering for the demands throughout the end of the decade.

And that's going to be a challenge. In the short term, it takes 60 to 90 days to interview, hire, and put a pilot through training. So the airlines have to be very proactive. And they're really, everybody's competing for the same shrinking pool. I'm kind of surprised the pool is shrinking because I remember in elementary school, every friend of mine wanted to grow up to be a pilot. It's like the dream of so many kids. Why aren't there enough people to actually do the job? I think there's two reasons. I think the airlines for the last, you know, few decades have gone through their ups and downs. There's been furloughs,

and a lot of it has to do with the cost and time involved. There are socioeconomic issues that we're hoping to address diversity-wise as we move into the future, but this has to be addressed now. Do you think this is the new reality, or are things likely to subside after we get through the peak of the summer travel season and everybody kind of gets their pent-up pandemic desire to go somewhere out of their system? I think all the airlines are working towards that. Unfortunately, this has gone on for over a year.

You know, we are seeing improvements. It's going to be much better than last summer and better than the holiday season. There are challenges. They are being addressed. I'm confident that the airline industry is going to get them addressed and travelers are going to be able to really have the expectation and that expectation is going to be met. Captain Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association.

The cost of flight school is one reason we're seeing fewer people training to be pilots right now. Pilot training can cost from $80,000 to $100,000, sometimes even more. That's way more than the average starting salary when pilots get their first job. In an effort to recruit and retain pilots creatively, one major airline opened its own flight school. NPR's David Shaper takes it from here. To an airline, well-trained pilots are as essential as planes and fuel. But right now, pilots are in very short supply. The entire airline industry has been facing a pilot shortage for the last decade. That's Faye Malarkey-Black, CEO of the Regional Airlines Association, a group representing smaller carriers like Endeavor, Envoy, GoJet, and SkyWest, which fly passengers for the major airlines branded as Delta Connection, American Eagle, and United Express.

Black says with the wave of baby boomers nearing retirement age, the industry was already facing a pilot shortage, and the pandemic made it much worse as major airlines offered incentives for many veteran pilots to take early retirement, while the FAA's issuance of new pilot certificates nearly ground to a halt. So when air travel demand recovered much more quickly than anticipated, Black says the big airlines hired a lot of pilots away from their smaller regional partners. You know, that propensity for a major airline to hire from a regional airline has always been the case, and that is the natural career order. We don't want to stop that. But the issue we have to respect and appreciate is that that is now happening on steroids. So to recruit more pilots, the usually low-paying regional airlines are now sharply

increasing pay. Starting salaries that were in the $25,000 to $40,000 a year range can now top $50,000 or more. Once at the mainline airlines, pilots average six figures plus. But long before being able to make that kind of money, pilots must have 1,500 hours of flight time and significant training, which can be expensive and take years. Cost is a huge factor. Allison McKay heads up Women in Aviation International. Scholarships are out there and money is available, but it's still very expensive. Some airlines are helping defray those costs while recruiting and training a new generation of pilots.

And United Airlines has gone so far as to open its own flight school. It's called United Aviate Academy here at Phoenix Goodyear Airport just outside of Phoenix, Arizona, where the school has 25 of these small Cirrus Track SR-20 training airplanes and is buying 25 more. Captain Curtis Brungis is a United pilot and Aviate's managing director. He explains why the airline wants its own flight school. There's two reasons. One is supply and demand, making sure there's an adequate supply of pilots for United. And the second is we think we can make some real inroads in the quality of training. On the quality side, Brungis says the Aviate Academy will better focus

on the technical skills needed to pilot commercial jetliners. One example of that is that we'll be doing upset recovery, so very, very advanced kind of acrobatic training with our pilots. That's something that professional flight training organizations don't do. It's not mandated by the FAA. It represents United innovating and doing something above and beyond the minimum. Brungis says he became a pilot because his father was one and his path was traditional, going through a university aviation program before joining the military to gain flight hours

and experience. But that route doesn't produce nearly as many pilots as it used to. So to help bring non-traditional candidates in, Brunges says the airline is picking up a critical cost for pilots accepted into its program. United is paying for the private pilot certification for 100% of our students. So the first part of the training United is sponsoring. We're paying for it. That's significant, right? That's significant. It's $17,000. In addition, United is helping make loans available to cover the rest of the $70,000 cost of flight school and training by guaranteeing student pilots a job once they complete it. By granting this private pilot certification,

the loan provider doesn't need to provide the loan until we've already certified the pilot and offered them a job at United Airlines. So when they apply for the loan, the loan provider understands that this is someone who has a conditional job offer at United already. So when they apply for the loan, the loan provider understands that this is someone who has a conditional job offer at United already. It's that kind of assistance that helped close the deal for Ricky Foster, who with her flight instructor next to her starts up this small propeller-driven plane and guides it toward the runway. The 38-year-old black woman who was born and raised in Jamaica never dreamed flying could be her career. To me, it seems so unlikely and impossible because I didn't see any woman look like me being a pilot.

Foster is one of 30 pilot candidates in United's first class out of 7,000 initial applicants. 80% of this class is women and people of color. The Academy's goal is to eventually produce 500 new airline pilots a year. That's NPR correspondent David Shaper. You heard additional reporting in this episode by Amanda Andrews at Georgia Public Broadcasting. It's Consider This from NPR correspondent David Shaper. You heard additional reporting in this episode by Amanda Andrews at Georgia Public Broadcasting.

It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.