Six months ago the United States was in an airline pilot shortage. Today, hundreds of pilots will join the unemployment line.
“It’s difficult to articulate or even comprehend the speed at which the coronavirus has changed our industry and our world, and the impact it has had on our company.” said Rick Leach, former president and CEO of now defunct Compass Airlines.
“I personally am struggling to wrap my mind around this new reality that seems to change at every turn,” Rick said March 19 in a companywide memo.
Compass Airlines was a regional carrier headquartered in Minneapolis. The airline operated 56 Embraer 175 aircraft for Delta and American Airlines and was a former shuttle service for Northwest Airlines. The company notified its employees of its closure March 19th with an internal email citing irrecoverable damages by the coronavirus pandemic. The companies last flight was on April 4th, leaving nearly 800 pilots out of work.
Along with Compass, Trans States Airlines, another regional carrier, also ceased operations early this month taking with it another 600 pilots. The two closures highlight a problem within the US airline industry: regional carriers just aren’t as well-equipped as major airlines to handle the occasional downturns of the aviation business.
As other regional carriers continue to nudge closer to more furloughs, an at-ends industry begins to wonder what major carriers like Delta, American, and United Airlines will do? Delta has already announced a 40% cut to their system wide capacity over the next few months. A 34 billion dollar indebted American Airlines has also grounded 450 aircraft—50% of it’s fleet. Having just survived the worst of complications arising from the 737 MAX, what’s next for American’s estimated 160,000 pilots?
It was just under 20 years ago that American Airlines furloughed 3,000 pilots as a result of the September 11th tragedy. It wasn’t until 2013 that those pilots would be offered to return to work. As Covid-19 continues to ravage the industry with cancelled flights and record low revenues, America’s pilots brace for impact. The unemployment line—once a distant fear, for many aviators, now seems an inevitable reality.
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