Two American Airlines-owned regional airlines will increase pilot pay by 50% through August 2024. This is the latest indication that airlines are prepared to pay in order to end a pilot shortage, which has left some passengers with less flight options.
These increases would make pilots the highest-paid U.S. regional airline employees, increasing pressure on other airlines to follow their lead.
The temporary increases will include separate, permanent raises. This will increase the hourly wage for first officers who fly at Piedmont Airlines in their first year. It is now $90 an hour. This is an increase of $51 an hour. First-year captains will receive $146 an hour. This is an increase of $78 per hour. Piedmont CEO John Piedmont said Monday that the airline could increase temporary raises if necessary.
Since last year, when travel demand rebounded from the Covid pandemic lows, airlines have been hiring pilots. However, a lack of qualified pilots continues to hinder growth in a time of high demand. This has led airlines to park smaller aircraft that can serve smaller cities. One reason is that airlines encouraged pilots in 2020 to retire early, resulting in too few available when travel recovered.
This has increased the competition for pilots.
Piedmont CEO Eric Morgan stated that the “attrition of regional pilots, especially the captains has really spiked” and was unable to fly the fleet.
American’s mainline operations have been losing 25 pilots per month to the airline based in Salisbury. The company has failed to reach its goal of hiring 40 pilots each monthly. Morgan stated that the Embraer ERJ-145s can fly 50 passengers between smaller cities but it has not been able operate 10 of the roughly 60 planes.
Morgan and Capt. Ryan Miller, chairman of Piedmont’s chapter of the Air Line Pilots Association.
Envoy Air, which is based in Irving Texas, announced Saturday that it had reached a similar agreement to pay a 50% premium to the pilots’ hourly rates until August 2024.
Kit Darby, a former United captain and consultant on pilot-pay, stated that raising the regional pilots’ salaries is a positive move but that the bar was too low. He suggested that airlines should ask themselves “What is a living wages and what would it take to attract pilots?”
These pay increases are coming as the largest pilot unions, which represent more than 35,000 aviators at Southwest and Delta, JetBlue, American, and American, are in contract negotiations with their carriers.
American’s management offered to give its approximately 14,000 pilots a 4% increase at the time of signing, and then a 3% increase the following year. Dennis Tajer, spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association, called it “insulting”.
Tajer stated, “Good for the pilots who are receiving raises. But when an airline is pushing for a pay increase of more than 50%, it’s acknowledging with dollars that there’s a problem.” Pilots from APA protested at the New York Stock Exchange earlier in the month, demanding a better contract and more flexible schedules.
