BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — As airports roar back from the depths of the pandemic, passengers like Richard Goodwill are confronting a new travel headache.
A pilot shortage.
"I know a couple of pilots," Goodwill said after arriving at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport from Texas, "and they've said, 'Everybody is looking for pilots.'"
According to the consulting firm Oliver Wyman, North America is about 8,000 pilots short right now. That shortage could grow to 30,000 over the next decade, the firm said, partly because of an onslaught of retirements. Already this summer, airlines like Southwest and American say they've grounded dozens of planes because they don't have anyone to fly them.
"What it means is the potential for higher fares and the potential for lower levels of service," said Geoff Murray, a current airline pilot and partner at Oliver Wyman. "It is impacting, right now, largely secondary cities."
For example, Delta ended regional service this month between MSP and La Crosse, Wisconsin, largely due to a lack of pilots.
"We still see a number of destinations that aren't being served, that were [being served] prior to the pandemic," MSP spokesperson Jeff Lea said. "And those were regional jet markets that haven't returned. And I think a lot of that has to do with the pilot shortage."
The pilot shortage has been on the agenda in Washington, D.C. this summer, as federal lawmakers work on reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration.
Last week, a U.S. House committee voted to raise the mandatory pilot retirement age from 65 to 67. Separately, a Senate proposal authored by Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and John Thune (R-SD) could open the door to changes to the so-called "1,500-hour rule," a training requirement that went into effect after the deadly 2009 crash of Flight 3407 near Buffalo, N.Y. That rule, passed in 2010, was part of the Airline Safety Act.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) blasted her colleagues for suggesting changes to the rule.
"A vote to reduce a 1,500-hour rule for pilot training will be blood on your hands," Duckworth said, "when an inevitable accident occurs as a result of an inadequately trained flight crew."
The Regional Airline Association, meanwhile, says changes to the training requirements would not undermine safety and could help ease the pilot shortage.
"Most pilots only have access to an hours-based pilot qualification standard, which incorporates little actual training after completing flight school," the RAA said in a statement. "To maintain safety, every regional airline has significantly expanded its training footprint, but more candidates fail out today than they did before the qualification standards favored flight time over quality training. This prevents air carriers from maximizing the pilot development pipeline."
The RAA also says that increasing the retirement age from 65 to 67 would keep as many as 5,000 pilots on the job over the next few years.
On the other hand, the Air Line Pilots Association has vigorously opposed changes to training rules and the retirement age. The union also says fears of a pilot shortage are being overplayed by the airlines.
"This legislation is a solution in search of a problem," ALPA president Capt. Jason Ambrosi said about retirement age proposals. "Raising the retirement age would only increase costs for airlines, worsen the post-COVID training backlog by using much-needed training cycles to train pilots over 65 who would be limited to domestic operations, and introduce unnecessary risks to passengers and crew alike. That's why major airlines and a significant majority of pilots and passengers oppose this move. We are disappointed by the introduction of this misbegotten bill that betrays an understanding of how the airline industry works and will create more problems for air travel."
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