Airline Careers

Statistics released this week by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) paint a sharp picture of the effect the COVID-19 pandemic had on the global air industry in 2020. Among the more startling numbers released by the trade association for the airline industry: The number of passengers dropped more than 60 percent, from 4.5 billion […]

Just 18 short months ago, pilots chasing an airline job had a nearly bottomless well of opportunities to draw from. Industry experts compared the scarcity of experienced cockpit crewmembers to the 1960s—when the major airlines were so needy, they actually subsidized pilot training. As 2019 drew to a close, it was fairly common for regional […]

The US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued their 2020 Occupational Outlook Handbook showing that “airline pilots, copilots, and flight engineers” had a median annual wage of $160,970, nearly four times the median wage for all US workers, who earned $41,950 on average. It is worth noting that in the handbook data, […]

A certain amount of an airline pilot’s life is given over to marking time on and around airports, and that is doubly true of the junior captain on reserve. I am currently ensconced in the midcentury-modern environs of the TWA Hotel, built around Eero Saarinen’s soaring TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport. […]

ATP Flight School has opened a new advanced pilot training center at the Arlington Municipal Airport (KGKY) in Arlington, Texas, adding to their 30-year history of training pilots in the Dallas area. The new 13,875 square-foot facility has been designed to address the need for airline pilots in the future as the industry rebounds from […]

“What’s it doing now?” If you haven’t said or thought it in the cockpit, you’ve almost certainly heard it from someone else. The question often has to do with new technology in the cockpit or automation not doing what you think it should. With more and more advanced systems—particularly with regards to navigation—expectation bias is […]

Last week the nation’s newest passenger airline, Avelo Airlines, inaugurated service to nearly a dozen unserved western cities from Hollywood Burbank Airport (KBUR). An Avelo news release said the first flight headed to the Charles M. Schulz–Sonoma County Airport (KSTS), in Santa Rosa, California, and some 200 miles northwest. Sporting “everyday low fares starting at […]

Nine proud alumni from Delaware State University call the flight deck of United Airlines aircraft home—and they were particularly happy to take part in a recent event celebrating the inclusion of their alma mater into a new program by the airline to work towards more diversity in its ranks. On April 15, Delaware State University […]

Readers of this publication are more intimate than most with the circumstances surrounding the tragedy of the Boeing 737 Max, but just as a review, the crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 in October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 five months later are all attributed to the malfunction of the maneuvering characteristics augmentation system. […]

Airline flying is pretty cushy work most days, particularly at the major US carriers, with largely reliable aircraft, a fairly robust support network, and nearly universal procedures that keep everyone on roughly the same page. Most airline pilots, by temperament and long experience, are perfectly content with the atmosphere of ordered boredom that normally reigns […]