The Pilot Shortage

When the commercial jets flew into service, they made the airline pilot a surplus commodity. Because the airlines could carry many more people much faster, they needed smaller fleets of planes and fewer men to fly them. The lines laid off hundreds of pilots, demoted countless others to lower ranks in the cockpit. Now the situation has made a full turn; for the first time in the annals of peacetime aviation, there is a serious pilot shortage.

TWA says it "desperately needs pilots," recently hired 190 of them, its first newcomers since 1957. To sell flying careers to young men, it sends teams of pilots on speaking tours around the country. Pan Am hopes to hire up to 275 pilots this year. Eastern has been recruiting at Air Force bases, recently added 400. TWA, Eastern and United also have been advertising in the help-wanted columns, and United is busy at its large flight-training school at Denver, intends to break in more than 1,000 men over the next two years.

The pay is high, and can become skyhigh. Pilots who handle the large jets begin at $6,000 to $6,720 the first year, then soar to some $35,000, plus many benefits, by the ninth year--for 85 airborne hours a month.

Why, then, the shortage? For one thing, the surge in travel has led airlines to greatly expand their fleets; last week TWA announced the largest equipment order in its history, 33 jets totaling $162 million. The airlines have usually picked up many pilots from the ranks of young officers who quit the Air Force after a few years; but with the switch to missiles, the military is training fewer pilots. Simultaneously, many of the pioneering pilots of the 1920s and 1930s are reaching the compulsory retirement age of 60. The Air Line Pilots Association figures that 1,400 older commercial pilots--10% of the nation's total--will get their wings clipped within the next decade. Says A.L.P.A.'s magazine: "Only a national emergency requiring the training of thousands will create a surplus."

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