Here's a snapshot of the turmoil in air travel: According to Flight Aware, over 6,700 flights within, into or leaving out of the county, were delayed on Wednesday. Over 2,800 flights were canceled across the country. The industry has been struggling to ramp up as quickly as travel demand has come back." "All of the airlines have been scrambling to fill all of our openings. "Travel demand came back faster than anybody anticipated," Mason said. Last month, the Delta Master Executive Council released a statement that said by fall Delta pilots will have worked more overtime this year than in 20 combined.ĭelta pilot and Wisconsin native First Officer Sheila Baldwin and crew board the Delta Team USA Airbus A330neo at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2022 on Tuesday. Mason said that at one point during the pandemic Delta was losing over $100,000 a day.Īs pilots accepted the retirement packages, Delta's workforce was significantly reduced, leaving it, like the other airlines, unprepared for the rapid return of leisure travel.
(Delta) offered retirement packages to our employees, to try to limit the size of the operation and limit our costs." "What happened with COVID, all the airlines went through so much financial turmoil in that 12- to 18-month period that a lot of us went into survival mode. "There was already a pilot shortage happening before (the COVID-19 pandemic)," Kelvin Mason, general manager for Pilot Pathways, a pilot training program, for Delta, said during AirVenture. Meanwhile pilots have begun to protest and in some cases strike over work conditions that include disrupted schedules, low wages and the inability to get enough rest to safely do their jobs.ĭelta pilots have been protesting since May in many major cities they say they're overworked and exhausted. Since the start of June, it canceled over 2,000 international and domestic flights. The lack of pilots and engineers has been a contributing factor to the issues travelers have faced, especially during the busy summer months.Īmerican Airlines has been among those most affected by the shortage. Commercial pilots say they've been pushed to their limits Now that people are becoming more comfortable with flying and traveling, the aviation industry is struggling to find enough pilots to fly the flights they need to keep up with the demand. More: Lead overhead: Pilots and people living near airports agree, lead in aviation fuel is no good. More: Team USA Delta Airbus pilot Sheila Baldwin, of small-town Wisconsin, flies at EAA AirVenture The state also had the lowest rates of employment for pilots, copilots and engineers. Wisconsin pilots were, on average, among the lowest paid in the nation in May 2021, according to the BLS.
Other pilots were fired or laid off.Īccording to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of airplane pilots and engineers has decreased by nearly 4% over the past two years. Some airlines offered early retirement packages to their employees in efforts to reduce expenses.
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