Local airports getting squeezed on routes due to scarcity of pilots
While this article reveals and ins and outs over the wrangling of new routes at airports around the country, it also depicts one of the main reasons for the difficulty in small regional airports to maintain regular flights — lack of pilots.
Some of the shortfalls at small airports are outside the airlines’ control. The regional carriers that served most of the smaller burgs simply don’t have sufficient numbers of pilots for many flights. Ground zero in this service carnage is the February 2009 crash of a Continental Express regional flight near the Buffalo airport, which killed 50 people. The investigation found that both pilots for the carrier, Colgan Air, were likely fatigued, inadequately trained, and the product of an industry in which financial pressures made low salaries endemic. The public was shocked to learn that the flight’s 24-year-old first officer earned only about $16,000 in 2008, her first year flying for Colgan.
Source: Why Airports Have to Speed-Date Airlines – Bloomberg
