ATLANTA—The demand for regional airlines is strong, albeit hampered by pilot availability and labor shortages, and executives say it is a market poised for evolution.
“Certainly, there’s an effort in the industry today to upgauge, and that is happening—no doubt,” Endeavor Air VP-Maintenance and Technical Services Bill Donohue said at Aviation Week’s MRO Americas Conference in Atlanta. “We’re going to fly our last 50-seater at the end of this month, and we will retire all the CRJ-200 fleet ... But today the Delta Connection Network, between Endeavor, Republic and SkyWest, I think we’re probably flying 37-38% of Delta’s daily departures. Maybe over the next few years that number will transition down to 33% or 34%. I don’t see it going away. There’s still going to be a lot of business for the regional airlines out there. The fact is mainline carriers can’t cover all that flying themselves. It’s not possible.”
Republic Airways Director of Maintenance Dale Cash added, “If we could all fly more, they would take every bit of lift we could provide. I don’t have any long-term concerns at all.”
A few factors are hampering capacity for regionals, the carriers shared, mainly pilot availability driven by attrition and a shortage of first officers upgrading to captain.
“We are hiring pilots ... The restraint that we’re having is upgrades to captain and we did not predict that,” said Cash. “We have a captain upgrade issue. People just simply aren’t hungry to get that time because they can remain a first officer, they bid the routes and things that they want, they can have their quality of life at home, and they can move onto mainline and other carriers without that pilot-in-charge time.”
Noting a similar captain upgrade deficit, though with new hire pilot classes full, Donohue projected the captain shortage problem to persist until mainline carriers stop or significantly slow down their hiring. Technician labor shortages were another area of concern, the carriers noted. The days of ramping up and ramping down your capacity in the MRO world are “basically over,” Cash said.
“We went from around 11 block hours, pre-pandemic, now we’re around seven ... We have watched our entire heavy maintenance program go from primarily flight hours-driven to now you’re hitting the brick wall of calendar dropdead. Last year, we passed the 50% threshold, this year we’re nearly 70% are driven by calendar, next year we’re nearly 90% ... it’s like high stakes gambling to plan your heavy check lines. If you have an MRO partnership and your MRO does not perform, you’re going to create a parking lot. You have to plan in a whole new way ... it’s actually strengthened our relationship with our MRO partners, we used to have around seven lines of heavy check, we now have five. And we are months ahead of our need.”
Absent those constraints, the regional carriers say the demand is there.
“If we had the crews, I’d be pulling aircraft out of parking,” said CommutAIr VP Maintenance and Technical Services Lon Ziegler. “Long range, is the regional industry going to change? Yes, but it’s not going anywhere, it’s just going to be different.”
