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Pilot shortage causing problems for United Airlines
By Julie Johnsson, Crains of Chicago
June 30, 2006
(Crains’) — United Airlines was forced to cancel 186 flights across the U.S. last weekend because it had nobody available to fly the planes, a scenario its pilots union had warned could happen if the airline didn’t boost staffing.
The pilot shortage was the result of a combination of factors: poor weather across the Atlantic seaboard, too few reserve pilots, an ambitious schedule and contractual and safety measures that limit the number of hours pilots can fly per day and per month.
United has taken steps to address the problem and doesn’t expect another service meltdown over the busy July 4 holiday weekend, says United spokeswoman Jean Medina.
The Elk Grove Township-based airline is accelerating its recall of furloughed pilots, rehiring another 125 before the end of 2006. That move would bring the total number of pilots United recalls this year to 400.
The slew of flight cancellations creates a new worry for summer travelers who’re braving an aviation system pushed to its limits by record numbers of passengers, sold-out aircraft and fewer staff at most airlines.
“The potential is always there across the summer, particularly towards the end of any calendar month,” says aviation consultant Robert Mann, president of R.W. Mann & Co. Inc., based in Port Washington, N.Y.
United passengers affected by the cancelled flights were stranded for hours, even days, because there simply weren’t seats available on other planes flying to their destinations — a result of record-high load factors at most U.S. carriers.
Tom Prince, an accounting professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, was stranded in Seattle on Sunday. He says United personnel told the several hundred passengers whose flights had been cancelled to return to the airport on Wednesday. Mr. Prince decided to tough it out. After he waited in lines for about seven hours, a United agent finally found him seats on a flight to Chicago that day.
United and other U.S. carriers are trying to squeeze more flying time out of their aircraft, while using fewer pilots. Weather delays can lead to staffing issues at the end of the month if pilots reach the maximum number of hours the FAA allows them to spend in cockpits, and there aren’t a sufficient number of reserve pilots available to help shoulder the load.
“We’ve talked for a long time about the potential for shortages,” says Captain Steve Derebey, chairman of the United Airlines pilots master executive council for the Air Line Pilots Association. “When they run as close as they have to their manpower projections, a little glitch throws a monkey-wrench in (the system.)”
