American Airlines expects it will need fewer pilots in the next year, which is a pretty telling development about the situation that the airline is in…
In this post:
American cancels new hire pilot training classes
When airlines hire new pilots, they first have to go through an intensive training program, including getting a type rating for the aircraft they’re going to fly (assuming they don’t have one already). Pilot hiring is always a long term planning process, as airlines can’t just hire pilots today, and have them flying tomorrow (as we learned earlier in the pandemic, when there were major labor shortages).
Along those lines, @xJonNYC shares an interesting update regarding American’s pilot hiring. Not only has American paused new pilot hiring, but the airline has even informed pilots who have already been conditionally hired that the airline doesn’t plan to have any new hire pilot classes for the remainder of 2024.
The airline states that this is part of the company’s ongoing evaluation of “commercial and talent needs.” The airline expects to make decisions about pilot class dates for the first quarter of 2025 later this year. In other words, it’s not even a given that American will resume new pilot training classes then.
This is of course a big bummer for those pilots who had already been conditionally hired, but hadn’t yet started their training. Generally the goal for airline pilots is to land a job at one of the major airlines, and then that’s their “forever home.” So they want to start flying for those airlines — and getting on the seniority list — as soon as possible.
What are the implications of this for American?
Admittedly American has a couple of major problems when it comes to growth:
- American has a lot of Boeing 737 MAX 8s, Boeing 787-9s, and Airbus A321XLRs on order, and these planes are being delivered behind schedule, so the airline isn’t adding capacity as hoped
- Not only that, but American is having issues with its commercial strategy, especially with the recent firing of Vasu Raja, American’s Chief Commercial Officer; American is performing much worse financially than Delta and United, and needs to do something to improve things
That being said, American doesn’t have immediate plans to retire many planes, and it’s worth noting that American has nearly 1,300 mandatory retirements among pilots through the end of 2025 (since the retirement age for airline pilots is 65). This means that American’s pool of pilots will be shrinking over the next year.
I suppose there are a few potential motivations for this:
- American could be planning a reduced schedule for this winter with more downtime for aircraft, just based on how demand is evolving, and the amount of capacity in the domestic market
- American could be aggressively retrofitting Boeing 777-300ERs this winter, taking some of them out of service to get new cabins
- American has been very well staffed lately with pilots, which has been great in terms of operational reliability during irregular operations; with fewer spare pilots, that could take a hit
- American may be looking to have some instructor pilots do “line flying” (meaning they actually operate flights), since they don’t have anyone to instruct
Bottom line
American has not only paused pilot hiring, but has even decided to postpone new pilot training classes for the remainder of 2024. The fact that American conditionally hired new pilots and now decided to not complete training classes suggests that the company has a sudden change in its projections for the next year (either in terms of demand, or in terms of ability to provide capacity).
The timing of this is also interesting, since it comes shortly after American’s Chief Commercial Officer was fired, as he just wasn’t leading the company’s strategy in the right direction.
What do you make of this update for American pilots?
My daughter, a Marine 130 driver, has a CJO with them from Oct 2023 and now is in limbo until who knows when. Guess she’ll have to live on reservist money until they make good on the offer.
I flew with them as F/A for almost ten years it was smooth and taking care of the Customers but merge with Us Airways is caos they invest the mi i'm un or nothing on Aircraft's and the most important the people ! they don't care about customers and the employees they want you to follow policies and be productive cash/ Cash is what they expect. The CEO make more and more profit and the employees less and less and Customers paying for this and that like Spirit. ☹️
Under USAirways, Doug Parker, Scott Kirby and Robert Isom were dubbed the golden boys of the airline industry by the WSJ I believe for the incredible turnaround they collectively implemented at USAirways.
The airline was at the top of its game. Then they merged and bailed out AA that just couldn’t seem to find a pathway out of bankruptcy. The baffling thing that happened was instead of staying the course USAirways was on, with...
Under USAirways, Doug Parker, Scott Kirby and Robert Isom were dubbed the golden boys of the airline industry by the WSJ I believe for the incredible turnaround they collectively implemented at USAirways.
The airline was at the top of its game. Then they merged and bailed out AA that just couldn’t seem to find a pathway out of bankruptcy. The baffling thing that happened was instead of staying the course USAirways was on, with incredible documented success, the adopted the corporate philosophy of an already failing airline. Now, they’re back in a mess. Let’s see what happens next. Vasu essentially tore the airline apart. Hopefully Robert Isom can go back to the good days of USAirways corporate model and right the ship. He did it once before, he can do it again
I’ve been a flt attendant with AA for 37 yrs & frankly, the airline that hired me has been flushed down the toilet by the current USAir/America West mgmt..
I would never fly for my yearly vacation, too risky with high probability of delays & flight cancellations; For the 5th straight year, I’ll drive to my destination in the Midwest.
We used to fly American exclusively. My husband flew over 2 million miles with them and has nothing really to show for it. Their flight schedules in our area are pathetic. I just looked at American to fly to NY and the return flight via DFW has an 18% on time rating. Wow. Plus, I have miles I cannot use. BUT, the main complaint is when I called the airline to try and book a...
We used to fly American exclusively. My husband flew over 2 million miles with them and has nothing really to show for it. Their flight schedules in our area are pathetic. I just looked at American to fly to NY and the return flight via DFW has an 18% on time rating. Wow. Plus, I have miles I cannot use. BUT, the main complaint is when I called the airline to try and book a flight to Europe, there was a 3 hour wait to get a reservation agent who could only read from a script and could not answer my questions. Improve the quality of your customer service!! Make it possible to use hard earned miles for flights. Make customers feel valued and they will return.
Sounds like TWA all over again?
Their product offering is so bad , if you have a choice you wouldn't use them. That does have an effect on a carriers performance when they market themselves as a full service carrier.
Isom got $31 million last year. If they’re going bankrupt the fat cats in the executive office are lining their pockets before it happens. Meanwhile FAs haven’t had a pay increase since 1/1/2019 and management wants to blame the “unreasonable” unions for all their woes. Isom is driving that company into the ground and lining his pockets with millions while he does it.
Sounds like they’re entering bankruptcy .
Wow, the competition for those open First-Class seats must be really fierce.
Paper boarding pass , sure you know what flight or Airline your getting on?
Romey, I don't know everywhere I go is packed with people, spending while they cry inflation.
Plane shortage = less Pilots plain and simple.
Packed planes don't equal profits. Airlines began to pack planes in the late 90s responding to primarily Southwest which had a much cheaper cost structure and therefore could offer lower fares and even more so the Internet, which gave consumers the ability to ferret our a much lower fare. And yet what happened to the industry?
And the American consumer? There's very little worry about tomorrow. As long as there's room on the credit card...
Packed planes don't equal profits. Airlines began to pack planes in the late 90s responding to primarily Southwest which had a much cheaper cost structure and therefore could offer lower fares and even more so the Internet, which gave consumers the ability to ferret our a much lower fare. And yet what happened to the industry?
And the American consumer? There's very little worry about tomorrow. As long as there's room on the credit card and they can make that minimum monthly payment they will spend. But that eventually comes to an end UNLESS we get COVID style helicopter money again.
Within the space of a year the airline has gone from desperate for pilots to no need for more pilots. I think we're going to see changes in air travel and not for the good. There's a segment of the population that is massively tapped out and taking the kids to Disney is no longer remotely affordable-or having credit card capacity to fund it.
Just image you have resigned your commission with the military or have a s**t load of student aviation debt and United puts you in a holding pattern for a year!! Some serious cussing and cursing going on right now!
As for the instructor pilots, they would continue to fly just to maintain their proficiency.
United is continuing to place pilots in new hire classes. American is pausing hiring until next year at the earliest.
For the better part of nine months, AA's international footprint will contract due to the 773 retrofit -- we already see it in the schedule. And, due to delivery delays, the XLRs will likely not fully phase in until mid-2025. Other factors? It would seem to make sense but maybe I'm wrong.
Too much raise.
That’s what I thought. The raises cost people their jobs. It always happens when unions demand the world.