Shortage of freighter pilots stands in the way of air cargo
AIRCRAFT conversion companies are working overtime turning narrowbody aircraft into freighters to cope with the increasing demand for capacity to carry the rapid growth of e-commerce shipments.
But a shortage of flight crews threatens to hamper the expansion of narrowbody fleets and regional freighters.
The shortage is hitting regional operators particularly hard and this was highlighted in the US in late February when Republic Airways filed for bankruptcy protection, blaming a lack of flight crews that had forced it to ground aircraft, according to London's Loadstar.
Republic's troubles brought back memories of Shenzhen-based Jade Cargo Airlines, a failed joint-venture involving Lufthansa Cargo and Chinese partners, which struggled to find enough pilots to man its fleet of six B747-400 freighters.
The situation is expected to worsen with large numbers of pilots from the baby boomer generation heading towards retirement.
In the widebody segment the flight crew supply is relatively stable, which is largely a reflection of the senior status of these pilots and of the slower global fleet growth compared to the narrow-body arena.
In the US the pilot shortage has been exacerbated by rules to improve the standard of airline pilots that came into effect last year when the US authorities introduced new entry requirements for commercial airline pilots, mandating that co-pilots must have a minimum of 1,500 hours of flight experience to qualify, a six-fold increase from the previous threshold.
Regional freighter operators have borne the brunt of the new regime, according to the Regional Air Cargo Carriers Association (RACCA).
"We have a serious crisis going on in our industry," warned RACCA chairman and Empire Airlines chief executive Tim Komberec. "There's much debate about the pilot shortage in the United States and in the world, but there is absolutely no doubt that at our level - where we perform, where we recruit pilots from and where we are on the food chain - we have an extremely serious problem and it has taken on crisis proportion."
There has also been discontent among US cargo pilots over freighters exemption from legislation introduced in the US in 2013 that reduced the maximum work hours for commercial pilots and a mandatory 10-hour break between flights. Pilot organisations at FedEx and UPS have been vocal critics of the exemption and continue to lobby for the rules to be extended to the cargo sector.
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