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…
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?
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