Standards Suffering? : Pilot Pinch: Airlines See Big Shortage

For the last four years, John C. Popkiss has been piloting Vice President George Bush around the world. Other VIPs who have flown with him include Secretary of State George P. Shultz, other Cabinet officers and members of Congress.

But pretty soon he will be flying fare-paying passengers around the world. He is trading the cockpit of Air Force 2 for the co-pilot’s seat of a Pan American World Airways Boeing 727.

The 39-year-old major, who recently decided to trade his 14-year career in the U.S. Air Force for one in commercial aviation and is currently training at the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Miami, could have had his pick of airline jobs. He chose Pan Am, he said, because he likes to travel the world.

The major U.S. airlines are starting to run short of pilots and are in hot pursuit of men like Popkiss. He is one of the increasing number of airmen they are luring from wherever they can find them--the military, commuter airlines and corporations.

A Sellers’ Market

The airlines are expecting a severe shortage of pilots to develop within the next few years. The pinch will be felt first and worst by the smaller and less financially secure carriers that cannot pay as well as the larger lines, which also offer greater benefits and glamour. Certainly the trend will generally mean larger paychecks for pilots, since a sellers’ market will ensue.

One illustration of the situation is provided by Pan Am, which recently began recalling pilots who had been furloughed for 16 years. But there were not enough of them to meet the need so Pan Am also began hiring new airmen for the first time in two decades.

“This voracious appetite for pilots is due to the growth of airlines,” said Capt. Henry A. Duffy, president of the Air Line Pilots Assn. “They’ve been expanding--adding more routes and more aircraft to their fleets and ultimately more pilots to their payrolls--to meet the increased demand by passengers for air travel. Whatever its causes, the high demand shows no sign of abating any time soon.”

Now Hire as Many as 46,000

The big carriers that fly jet airliners have between 38,000 and 40,000 pilots on their payrolls at present, and the commuter lines, which generally use turboprop planes, employ another 5,500 to 6,000.

There are some ominous aspects to the pending shortage--mainly the likelihood of a further lowering of the airlines’ standards for pilots.

Already, airlines are allowing new pilots to be older, fatter and shorter. Now, they are cutting back on other things, like the requirement for a college degree. Also, they no longer require 20/20 vision if an applicant’s vision can be corrected with glasses. The required amount of flying time in the cockpit also has been reduced.

“We have a shortage of pilots with the qualifications the airlines are used to getting,” said Kit Darby, vice president for marketing of the Future Aviation Professionals of America, an Atlanta-based career information and placement service for pilots, flight attendants and airplane mechanics.

Pilot Qualifications

He said the average newly hired airline pilot formerly had to be between 25 and 30 years old, have 3,400 hours of flying time as a pilot, co-pilot or flight engineer--of which two-thirds had to be in jets. The new pilot also had to possess a four-year college education, have 20/20 vision and be between 5 feet 6 inches and 6 feet 4 inches tall. “That kind of guy is getting scarce,” Darby said.

Last year, according to Darby’s organization, roughly 13% of the pilots hired by the major airlines had less than 2,000 hours of flight time. Two years ago, virtually all newly hired pilots had more cockpit experience than that.

Delta Airlines required as late as 1981 that applicants have a college degree. Now, though a degree is desired, it is no longer mandatory, and two years of college is considered to be enough.

In 1981, Delta required 2,500 hours of multiengine time for pilot aspirants. That has been reduced to 2,000.

The desired age in 1981 was 30, but no newly hired pilot could be more than 34. “We don’t really have an (age) limit now,” said Hollis L. Harris, Delta’s senior vice president for operations. “We just pick the best out there. We still get resumes from the best that apply to any of the airlines.”

However, he added, “I think that the overall industry demand for pilots is going to be such that airlines will not get the caliber of pilots that they were getting 10 years ago.”

Expected to Break Record

According to Future Aviation Professionals of America, the industry’s record hiring year for pilots was 1985, when 10,800 pilots got new jobs with the major airlines that fly jets. The organization predicts that between 9,000 and 12,000 pilots will get new jobs this year. This includes new cockpit crew members entering the pilot work force for the first time and pilots who leave commuter airline jobs--where they usually fly propeller-driven planes--for new jobs with the jet airlines.

The Federal Aviation Administration predicts that by 1998 the U.S. jet transport fleet will number 4,159 aircraft, compared to 3,168 in 1986. And, by using the agency’s projections, the Air Line Pilots Assn. predicts there will be a need for more than 32,000 new jet pilots in the next decade to take care of attrition and industry growth. Regional airlines not flying jet aircraft are expected to hire an additional 10,000 during that period.

Probably the most important factor in the increased hiring of pilots has been deregulation of the airline industry in 1978. That spawned a large number of new passenger airlines, all of which needed pilots.

At the same time, the existing airlines were extending their routes. Delta, for example, which had never had overseas flights, added them after deregulation. Other airlines expanded their fleets with the purchase of additional aircraft.

Hiring at Piedmont Airlines

Piedmont Airlines will take delivery of three new Boeing 767s this year and three next year. The plane requires a two-pilot crew in the cockpit--where other current airliners need three, including a flight engineer--and Piedmont is hiring seven or eight such crews for the planes it uses on overseas flights. Domestically, Piedmont will hire six or seven cockpit crews for the 767s. It also has 17 Boeing 737-200s scheduled for delivery this year, adding to the need for new crew members. Largely as a result of these acquisitions, Piedmont has boosted the number of pilots it is hiring to 48 a month since the start of this year from about 30 last year, according to Gene F. Sharp, the airline’s vice president for flight operations.

Not only are there more airlines flying more routes, but the planes are being used more. Planes are now flown an average of 10.5 hours a day, up from six hours in pre-regulation days, according to Future Aviation Professionals of America. Some airlines are planning eventually to increase daily use to 12 hours, which would mean another large increase in the need for pilots.

Another important reason for the pinch is that what had once been the major source for the airlines--the military--is largely drying up. The industry used to hire 83% of its pilots from the military; today, the figure is less than 40%.

Postwar periods have traditionally provided the country with pools of highly trained, carefully screened professional pilots ready to move into the civilian market as the services reduced manpower to peacetime levels. But it has been well over a decade since U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War ended, and more than three decades since the end of the Korean War.

Military Woos Its Airmen

Veterans of the Korean and Vietnam wars have either already joined the airlines or have retired from aviation. Now, there are fewer airmen in the military, and the services are trying hard to retain those it has, largely because it costs so much to train them.

In 1979, the Air Force hit an all-time low, retaining only 26% of its pilots in the key group of fliers who have between six and 11 years of time in the service. (Pilots are committed to stay in for six years; after 11 years, Air Force officials say, they are likely to remain in 20 years to get a pension.)

But the reenlistment figure climbed to an all-time high of 78% (after two large military pay raises and an improvement of working conditions) in 1983, when the number of pilots was 22,700, and now stands at 54%, according to Capt. Miles Wiley, an Air Force spokesman.

The Air Force lost 3,538 pilots to resignation and retirement in 1979 and 1,100 in 1983. In the first half of fiscal 1987, 646 more aviators left the service. The number of military-trained pilots in civil aviation is diminishing rapidly.

More Approach 60

The shortage will worsen when large numbers of Korean War-era pilots soon reach the mandatory retirement age of 60. (Pilots can postpone their retirement if they move to the engineer’s seat after 60.)

According to the Air Line Pilots Assn., more than 7,000 of its approximately 40,000 currently active members will have reached the mandatory retirement age by 1995. Most of them are Korean War veterans.

The pilots association says that United Airlines, by 1995, will have lost 2,353 of its present pilots to retirement. The figures are 1,205 for Trans World Airlines, 1,099 for Eastern Airlines and 683 for Pan Am. As a result of such statistics, there is some feeling in the industry and in Congress in favor of extending the retirement age.

According to Capt. James Duncan, Pan Am’s vice president for flight operations, the median age for his airline’s 1,864 pilots is 49--meaning that more than 900 of them will have to retire within the next 11 years.

And there is a growing number of early retirements, especially from airlines with management problems. Their reasons vary from an attempt to protect pensions at financially ailing carriers to general disenchantment with management, recent mergers and working environments.

Losses at Eastern

Troubled Eastern, for example, is losing many more pilots than it had anticipated. It had expected to lose an average of 10.5 pilots a month last year, but 21.8 a month took early retirement. This year it was expecting to lose 20 a month, but 45 left in February and 48 in March. The situation has gotten so bad that Eastern has had to shuffle summer vacation schedules to avoid shortages.

These developments are good economic news for today’s airline pilots and their union. The increasing demand will produce gains for experienced pilots who want to shop around for the best salary.

The large-scale retirements should have the effect of modifying or eliminating the pay differential between the high rates earned by veteran pilots and the lower--or “B-scale”--pay given new hires by most airlines these days. Retirements should also give these newly hired airmen a better chance of upward mobility and less chance of being laid off. Earlier this month, Continental Airlines announced raises of as much as 20% for its pilots.

But Maj. Popkiss will take a whopping pay cut when he leaves Air Force 2 for Pan Am. At his rank, with a housing allowance for Washington, D.C., and flight pay, he was making more than $50,000 annually. At Pan Am he will earn $18,000 to start.

Expects to Make More

However, it is an investment in the future, he says. Within five years, he expects to be making more at Pan Am than the Air Force has been paying him. At 39, he still has 21 years to fly before reaching the mandatory retirement age for pilots, and he will have a good crack at becoming a Pan Am captain in that time.

As a way of avoiding the crunch, the airlines have also begun to hire retired military pilots. Such men, who under the old standards were too old to join the airlines, have a decade or more of flying left and have become an important source of manpower for the airlines. According to the pilots association, some American carriers are also beginning to hire foreign pilots.

Despite the looming shortage, some of the more financially secure and long-established airlines are having no difficulty finding pilots now. American Airlines, for example, has had enough applications to fill its needs.

“As the pay issues tend to be resolved . . . “ said George A. Hof, American’s vice president for flight, “we’ll see qualified young people opting for this kind of a career as they have in the past.”

May Train From Scratch

Most large carriers do their own pilot training, even though all of the pilots they hire are already experienced aviators. But the threat of a severe shortage is causing some airlines to consider other choices--possibly training their fliers from scratch.

Federal Express, which has 850 pilots and is in the process of adding another 150, is considering the creation of its own pilots’ school. “We are actively discussing whether or not we should start our own training program from the ground up,” said Bryan Hogue, vice president for flight operations.

“We are not at the point yet where it will be required. But I think sometime in the early 1990s, we are going to see the pilot availability situation tighten up considerably.”

NWA Inc., the parent of Northwest Airlines, last year founded Northwest Aerospace Training Corp., a subsidiary to train its own pilots and also to sell such training to other airlines.

Besides training experienced pilots, it also plans to offer training to people who have never flown before. “We feel there is a need out there to produce and market an airline-standard, quality product,” said Thomas Nunn, head of the school, which is being operated in conjunction with the University of North Dakota.

More Colleges Participate

Northwest and the University of North Dakota are not alone in recognizing the need for pilot training institutions. About 50 colleges and universities across the country offer two- and four-year pilot training programs. According to Gary Kiteley, executive director of the University Aviation Assn., they are graduating about 1,000 students a year and graduations have been growing at a 15% annual rate, while enrollments have jumped 40% in the last three years.

Small commuter airlines and corporations that have their own planes are hard hit already by the demand for pilots. With the military drying up as a source of fliers for the big airlines, they have become an important alternate.

The Regional Airline Assn. says its members lose an average of about a third of their pilots each year. Commair, a Cincinnati-based regional that has 37 planes operated by 237 pilots, is about average in that regard, with fully 33% of the pilots leaving annually for jobs with larger carriers.

According to Kim Marshall, Commair’s director of operations, the defectors seek a number of changes in their situations.

Looking for Glamour

“They are looking for the glamour of flying bigger planes,” he said. “They also get better benefits and have to fly less hours. They work longer hours (85 to 92 hours a month as compared to about 66 for a pilot on a jet airliner) for less money.”

Continental Airlines has taken a cue from professional baseball by establishing a “farm” system. It owns three commuter airlines--Rocky Mountain Airways, Britt Airways and Providence-Boston Airlines.

“We will hire a guy fairly young--21 or 22 who may have 800 or 900 hours of flying time--out of one of the aviation schools,” said Richard Hillman, Continental’s vice president for flight operations. “We would hire him for Continental and let him fly in the third seat (flight engineer) for about a year. Then he could go to one of our commuters as a co-pilot for a couple of years till he built up 2,000, 3,000 or 4,000 hours of flying time. He would then come back to Continental.

“What you basically have is like a baseball farm club system. You need someone and you can call him up quickly. If he had trouble for any reason, he could go back to the commuters.”