Airline Says New Regulations Making Qualified Pilots Difficult To Find

Airlines serving small markets are canceling more and more flights these days, and the culprit, according to the carriers, is new regulations boosting flight time requirements for first officers.

One such example is Great Lakes Airlines, which is supposed to schedule three flights a day from Devils Lake North Dakota. But the Mayor of Devils Lake, Dick Johnson, said that the service has been "sporadic at best," according to the local online news site Inforum. Out of 90 flights scheduled in November, 35 were canceled, according to the source.

The problem is not limited to North Dakota. Carriers nationwide are reporting that a new law passed by Congress that requires pilots to build up 1,500 hours before serving as a first officer on an airline flight has grounded many pilots until that threshold is reached. Flight cancelations, particularly in small markets, seem to be an unintended consequence of the law.

Kent Lovelace, chairman of the University of North Dakota’s aviation department, said that according to a 2012 study done by his department, the U.S. airline industry faces a shortfall of some 35,000 pilots by 2030. He added that the average age of an airline pilot is 49.9, and it's trending up. By 2031, 45,000 of the 54,000 pilots currently working for the major airlines will have reached the mandatory retirement age of 65 years old.

Lovelace said it’s too early to tell if the new regulations will have a chilling effect on those who have begun or are considering careers as airline pilots. UND offers a program towards a "Restricted ATP" certificate, which would put a pilot in the right seat as a first officer with 1,000 in the log book. There are also exemptions for military pilots.

FMI: http://aviation.und.edu/Home/Default.aspx