Delta Air Lines will not be increasing the number of daily flights between Tulsa and Minneapolis or Tulsa and Detroit this summer to the extent that the airline has during summers past.
Since 2008, Delta has ramped up Tulsa’s service during busier summer months to fly three daily flights between Tulsa International Airport and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, and two daily flights between Tulsa and Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport.
During nonsummer months, Delta runs one daily flight to Detroit, but this year the carrier isn’t going to implement a seasonal frequency boost.
This year Delta is running one daily flight to Minneapolis and will increase the frequency during the summer to two flights. Last year Delta ran two daily flights to Minneapolis during nonsummer months and increased the frequency to three a week during the peak travel season.
Instead of the typical frequency increase, Delta says it plans to begin using larger planes. The change is part of the air carrier’s much broader system-wide strategy referred to in the industry as upgauging — using larger planes to increase seats to a market without increasing flight frequencies to a market.
Planes previously carried 50 passengers, and will now carry 76.
Changes are also part of a continuous system-wide re-evaluation of the markets it serves, Delta officials said. The air carrier must determine where demand is greatest for a finite number of resources. Limited resources include a fixed number of aircraft, airport assets and personnel — including pilots.
Many in the aviation industry believe that the nation has entered into a pilot shortage, a critical issue that will begin to affect small airports — and medium-sized airports like Tulsa — at a level above the impact it already seems to have had.
‘Air service deaths by frequency cuts’
According to Bill Swelbar, executive vice president of InterVISTAS Consulting LLC, a management consulting company focused on aviation and tourism, the pilot shortage has not yet begun to cause widespread agitation because most air carriers are responding to the situation by cutting flight frequencies instead of exiting markets.
“For many airports out there it’s air service death by 1,000 frequency cuts,” Swelbar said.
Between 2008 and 2014 the total number of seats available to a market did not change dramatically. Frequency cuts went largely unnoticed because air carriers were using larger aircraft for the flights that they did continue to run.
However, Swelbar said he expects decreased availability will become more apparent by the second half of 2015.
“I don’t think we’re necessarily going to see seats grow as fast as frequency cuts,” Swelbar said.
During 2016 Swelbar anticipates that impacts will become more pronounced. By 2017, it will be “game on,” he said.
A study Swelbar recently conducted projects that between 2013 and 2022 more than 16,000 pilots will be retiring from their positions at the big four commercial airlines — American, Delta, United and Southwest.
The study also anticipates that more than 9,000 of the 17,757 pilots for the small regional carriers will retire by 2022.
Peter Harris, CEO of Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology, said that he’s heard estimates that 120,000 pilots will retire globally during the next 10 years.
Currently, problems from the pilot shortage are really only affecting regional air carriers and the smaller areas they serve, experts say.
Often, jobs at regional carriers are seen as a stepping stones to a job with one of the four large commercial airlines. So when there’s a lack of pilots in the pipeline, it’s the regional carriers who end up with vacant positions.
During the past year, Oklahoma State University alumni who have gone on to work for regional carriers have begun to mention scenarios that demonstrate the pilot shortage, OSU’s flight program manager Lance Fortney said.
“It’s not uncommon for flights to be canceled because there’s no pilot,” Fortney said. “Planes are there. Passengers are ready. The weather’s good.”
American Airlines and Southwest Airlines have not had any trouble filling positions, but that doesn’t mean the relatively small number of pilots entering the workforce isn’t an issue that’s on the company’s radar, according to their spokeswomen.
“It’s definitely something we do pay attention to,” said Andrea Huguely with American Airlines.
Amy Thornton said that Southwest Airlines recognizes the pilot supply is an issue that’s looming.
The company’s efforts to increase the number of pilots in the pipeline include outreach programs for students at the collegiate level and even the elementary school level, she said.
Low income, limited job opportunities
The situation the nation faces of having a large number of pilots retiring during the next decade with a lack of pilots in the pipeline has been caused by the confluence of several events, Tulsa Airports Director Jeff Mulder said.
“Over the last few years the airlines have performed well financially but experienced a challenging environment from 2008 through 2012 with furloughs and bankruptcy and mergers,” Mulder said. “This was not an attractive environment to recruit new pilots to the industry.”
Another major issue is the discrepancy between the cost of earning a pilot’s license and the surprisingly small sum a pilot can expect to earn once they enter the workforce.
Earning a license can plunge a student into six-figure debt, and some small regional carriers pay less than $15,000 per year.
The Allied Pilots Association represents the 15,000 pilots that fly for American Airlines Group. Pilots who fly for American and other large air carriers make much more than $20,000 a year, a typical salary pilots’ earn during their first year flying for a small regional carrier.
But for pilots who don’t come to the profession through the military, they must start with a small regional carrier in order to get a job with the larger airlines.
“It’s well into six figures,” spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association union Gregg Overman said on the cost of becoming a pilot. “Versus getting out and making maybe $20,000 a year. Honestly, I think it’s a rational decision for someone to make to say, ‘That doesn’t really make sense.’ ”
“As a traveler, do you want to know your pilots have to couch surf because they can’t afford their own place? It’s not a good picture. Ultimately we think it’s a problem that market forces will correct.”
The Air Line Pilots Association, however, says no shortage of qualified pilots exists. The union, which represents pilots from many of the regional and legacy commercial air carriers says that Federal Aviation Administration data shows that currently there are two pilots for every job available.
What there is a shortage of, the union says, is the number of pilots who are willing to take jobs that pay measly wages and offer no career advancement trajectory.
“Many in the industry continue to use an alleged pilot shortage as an excuse to cancel flights, drop routes and propose rolling back important new safety regulations,” said ALPA President Capt. Tim Canoll.
“However, by manufacturing a crisis, we are ignoring the truth — that lack of a career path, combined with rock-bottom pay and benefits by some airlines are failing to attract pilots. Professional pilots want promising careers with growth potential and stability.”
Legislation and regulation stymie
In late 2007, federal legislation increased the mandatory retirement age for pilots from 60 to 65 years old. Many in the industry, Harris noted, then became complacent with the looming shortage and put it off for five years.
And just as pilots whose careers were extended by the legislation were retiring, the federal government enacted two new requirements that many industry experts say have exacerbated the issue.
“One of the new requirements is for crew rest, which lengthens the time required for rest over a 24-hour period,” Mulder said. “This requires more flight crews to fly the same schedule, which seems to have impacted our schedule in Tulsa.”
The other, which Mulder describes as a more serious requirement, increased the minimum hourly requirement for a pilot to fly as a first officer from 250 hours to 1,500 hours.
The new rule came as a result of an airline accident in Buffalo, New York in 2009.
Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed on an instrument approach to Buffalo, New York, killing all 45 passengers, four members of the flight crew and one person on the ground.
However, government reports do not indicate that the pilot’s number of training hours was a factor in the crash.
The requirement seems to be more of a political gesture by the pilots association to limit the available workforce and leverage higher wages, Mulder said.
“Congress seems to be unwilling to address the issue due to emotional involvement of the families,” Mulder said.
“However, we are seeing a pilot shortage that will potentially devastate small community air service, unless something is done.”
2014-2022: Reduction in the Regional Pilot Workforce
Regional pilot workforce in 2014: 17,757
Number of pilots needed to backfill retirements thru 2022: 9,338
Number of pilots needed to fill new equipment: 4,940
Estimated reduction of regional pilot workforce by 2022: 80.4 percent
Source: Analysis by Bill Swelbar, executive vice president of InterVISTAS Consulting LLC
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