With the demand for flights heating up again in the United States, American Airlines is motivated to hire new employees, mainly crew .
According to the company, after the summer season, where it plans to operate at 90% of its capacity, there will be a hiring of 300 pilots to compose the crew.
Even before that, the crew who were removed from their position will return to fulfill the increase in offer and flights in the summer period in the northern hemisphere.
American Airlines faces a potential pilot shortage because it didn't anticipate or plan for such a quick recovery. For this reason, the company is replacing smaller capacity planes with larger capacity planes on some flights, as well as reducing the number of frequencies, but increasing the number of seats per flight, as part of the plan to overcome this lack of pilots.
“We intend to resume hiring pilots this fall. The return to flying of so many of our pilots and the addition of hundreds more, the resumption of many old routes and the introduction of new destinations are hopeful signs.”, said Captain Chip Long, Vice President of Operations for American Airlines.
The company still plans to hire another 600 pilots throughout 2022, to an increase in its operations, as well as the retirement of crew at this time.
Last year, nearly 1000 American Airlines pilots took early retirement. Another 16600 resigned through the voluntary termination programs that American carried out throughout 2020.
