Americans face decades of flight delays and cancellations amid critical shortage of pilots

Flight delays and cancellations could be ongoing for as long as a decade, as an investigation by CBS News has found. Since the pandemic, travel has surged, which has caused thousands of disruptions over the past two years.

The industry is short by up to 32,000 commercial pilots, mechanics, and air traffic controllers - and those figures aren’t coming down any time soon. It takes years to train pilots who must retire, by law at the age of 65 with air traffic controllers, even younger, at 56.

These shortages are causing many of the delays and cancellations that have blighted air travel in the US.  Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has come under fire for the chaos and has now said his office is "actively investigating" several airlines for "unrealistic scheduling" practices, or listing flights rather than carriers.

“There are definitely gaps in places,” said Buttigieg.  “The system is just uneven right now”. 

Aviation consultant, Oliver Wyman predicts that by 2026, the industry will be short by 24,000 pilots. Training a pilot can take up to two years and cost more than $100,000.

The CBA News analysis found that the industry needs around 12,800 certified and trained mechanics. Boeing has estimated that the US will need 178,000 mechanics to meet the demand.

Kathleen Bangs, a spokesperson for flight tracker FlightAware, says: “This is the big unsung shortage that nobody talks about. Most people don’t understand that about half of all airline maintenance is done overseas.”  

“How do we attract young people to become mechanics, which are critical, but also at the same time they’re outsourcing more and more of their work?”

The shortages don’t stop there.  n a report by the US Department of Transportation’s Inspector General, revealed that in 20 of 26 critical control towers, staff fell below the Federal Aviation Administration’s 85 percent threshold. One tower in New York City has only 54 percent of its required staff.

“If you look at the delays, for example, that America experienced through last year in the summer of 2022, a lot of that was driven by these companies not having the staff they needed", Buttigieg went on. 

Data supplied by FlightAware shows that the number of delays caused by issues within air carriers’ control has jumped from 5.2% in 2018 to 7.6% in 2023. That equates to thousands of delayed flights. 

The data also revealed that over a four-day period this summer, from June 24 to 27, 31,850 flights were delayed.  Airlines also, over the same period, canceled 6,346 flights - equating to one in 17 canceled. 

One of the worst offenders, Southwest Airlines is one under investigation by Secretary Buttigeig’s office.

Last winter, during the busy holiday period and a heavy storm, Southwest canceled thousands of flights. From December 24 to 31, it canceled 14,042 flights (72.3 percent of flights nationwide) leaving people stranded over the Christmas period.

The situation became so critical that 34 state attorneys general wrote to Buttigieg’s office with several recommendations.