“As a result, United Airlines and Amer-
ican Airlines have parked about 100
regional jets each in recent months
because they lacked the pilots to fly
them. Airlines have also stopped ser-
vice in small cities; for instance, Unit-
ed just announced it's dropping a 25th
city from its service since the begin-
ning of the pandemic. American is of-
fering massive pay hikes to the pilots
at its three regional airlines in an effort
to attract more pilots and, possibly,
stem some of the attrition.
"Communities are losing air service,
including those in South Carolina, and
this new legislation allowing safe,
healthy pilots to remain on the job is
an important step that is needed to
solve the pilot shortage,
" Drew Jacoby
Lemos, RAA's senior director of gov-
ernment affairs, said at a Monday
news conference at Greenville-Spar-
tanburg International Airport (GSP)
with Graham.
"The shortage has
meant that 71% of the airports that
have commercial air service have seen
a decline in flights.“