American Airlines Embraer ERJ-145 regional jet seen on the final approach to landing at New York JFK International Airport on February 13, 2020.
Nicholas Economou | Nurphoto | Getty Images
two American Airlines-Airlines in your area will increase pilot payments by 50% until the end of August 2024. The latest sign airlines are paying in hopes of resolving the pilot shortage, and some travelers have fewer flight options.
This increase puts pilots in the highest payments of any regional airline in the United States and pressures them to follow other airlines.
Temporary salary increases, including individual permanent salary increases, will raise the co-pied’s hourly wage for the first year of flight on Piedmont Airlines from $ 51 per hour to $ 90 per hour, the company said. For captains in the first year, wages range from $ 78 per hour to $ 146 per hour. Piedmont’s CEO said Monday that airlines could extend temporary hikes as needed.
Airlines are hiring pilots Spree Travel demand COVID pandemic Low price.But there is still a persistent shortage of pilots Hinder growth During times of strong demand, we urged airlines to park jets servicing small cities.Part of the problem is with the airline Recommended Pilots took an early retirement after a surge in demand in 2020 and remained too low when travel recovered.
It intensified the competition for pilots.
“The decline in pilots in the area, especially the captains, has really soared to the point where we can’t put the fleet in the air,” Piedmont CEO Eric Morgan told CNBC.
Based in Salisbury, Maryland, the airline lost about 25 pilots a month on its US mainline operations and failed to meet its goal of hiring about 40 pilots a month. According to Morgan, he flew a 50-seat Embraer ERJ-145 to the United States, usually flying between small cities, but couldn’t operate 10 out of about 60.
Morgan and Ryan Miller, presidents of the Piedmont Chapter of the Piedmont Association, said Piedmont approached the union with salary increases outside the scope of normal contract negotiations.
Irving, Texas-based Emboyair said on Saturday that it had reached an agreement similar to the pilots’ union and would pay a 50% premium to pilots’ hourly wages until the end of August 2024.
With about 2,000 pilots, Emboy lost about 80 pilots a year to other airlines and employed about 60, including Americans, said Rick Wilson, vice president of flight operations for the airline. The captain says. He said most of the decline was among the captains of the envoy.
Kit Darby, a retired pilot salary consultant and captain of United, said raising pilot salaries in the region was a positive step, but the standards were low. He said airlines need to ask, “What is a living wage and what is needed to attract pilots to their careers?”
The salary increase comes as one of the largest pilot unions — a union representing more than 35,000 aviators. Southwest, deltaJetBlue and American — Contract negotiations with carriers.
American Airlines pilots picketed outside the New York Stock Exchange on June 2, 2022.
Leslie Joseph | CNBC
American management recently offered about 14,000 pilots a 4% increase on the signing date and a 3% increase the following year. Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, called it “insulting.”
“It’s good for pilots who get these salary increases, but if there are airlines that are pushing for salary increases of 50% or more, we’re aware in dollars that they’re having problems,” Tajer said. Says. APA pilots picked up on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this month to improve contracts and schedules.
American did not immediately comment on what the union spokesman said.
