Airlines are back in hiring mode, looking for pilots, flight attendants and ramp agents to ferry eager travelers who have largely been stuck at home for over a year.
The same day that Dallas-based Southwest Airlines announced that it made a $348 million profit in the second quarter thanks to $724 million in taxpayer-supported payroll grants, CEO Gary Kelly said it’s harder to recruit new employees than it was before the pandemic, even at a company that is regularly named one of the best places to work in the country.
“The effort to hire is double what it used to be,” said Kelly, who is retiring early next year.
It’s a sign of the times in the topsy-turvy labor market where only a year ago workers were looking at pay cuts, reduced schedules and furloughs just to stay employed. The labor force is smaller than it was two years ago by about 3 million workers, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve. Dozens of industries are facing labor shortages in key industries such as retail, manufacturing and restaurants.
The airline industry, despite higher-than-average wages, hasn’t been immune, and now carriers are scrambling to shore up workforces needed to fly planes, check bags, push wheelchairs through airports and more.
“If it’s not the No. 1 focus right now, it is 1A, which is getting hiring in place,” Southwest’s incoming CEO Bob Jordan said. “You’re in a broad market with supply shortages, so there’s just not enough people to fill the jobs that are open.”
Airlines have always been an attractive place to work because of relatively high salaries and benefits that include free travel for employees and family members. The average employee at Southwest took home about $66,000 in wages in 2019. In 2020, the average Southwest employee walked away with about $11,000 in profit-sharing, too.
But some of the biggest areas of concern are among lower-paid employees, including ground workers at airports who work in extreme weather conditions, hoist heavy bags onto airplanes and are paid far less than their pilot, flight attendant and management counterparts.
The company isn’t looking at a shortage of workers everywhere, but there is a pressing need at some of Southwest’s key airports, Jordan said.
“We’ve got a full press to hire on the Denver ramp because there are needs there,” Jordan said.
While Southwest Airlines leaders have tried to persuade the public that the recent operational difficulties were due to technology and weather problems, flight attendants say they have been “stretched to the limit,” and pilots say there is a staffing issue.
Southwest is taking steps to fix that. The company said it is recalling all remaining employees who went out on voluntary leave after the COVID-19 pandemic last year. About a quarter of all employees, some 18,000 people, took time off voluntarily to help the company lower payroll costs through the financial crisis.
Now the company is not only bringing workers back, it’s also looking for new ones.
Dallas-based Southwest graduated its first class of new flight attendant trainees last week and officially posted jobs for 120 new pilots it will need. But training new pilots is tough because Southwest’s leader said the company also has a shortage of flight instructors.
The company hopes that a new $15 minimum wage for all workers will help but also acknowledges that airport jobs are sometimes inconvenient for workers because of background checks and commute times to airports.
Across town, Fort Worth-based American ramped up hiring plans for pilots and says it hopes to hire 350 this year and 1,000 next year. It expects to need new flight attendants next year as well.
American Airlines cut its employee count by more than 10,000 during the COVID-19 pandemic through voluntary buyouts and cutbacks to management and administrative ranks. But now the carrier, which has been the world’s largest in recent months with an aggressive flying schedule, needs workers again. American has added 3,500 workers so far this year, American Airlines president Robert Isom said.
“This quarter, we rebuilt the operation up from pandemic-level flying, effectively adding a new airline the size of the old US Airways over the course of just a few months,” Isom said during the company’s earnings call Thursday.
At times though, it hasn’t been enough. The carrier has faced delays due to labor shortages at its vendors that provide catering. And the union that represents fleet workers and reservations agents pleaded with American for a deal to limit mandatory overtime assignments.
The union that represents American Airlines pilots has complained that conditions are worsening for them. Pilots are increasingly stuck without hotel reservations, and many are unhappy with the cheese and cracker trays that have replaced full meals during short turnarounds between flights.
Both American and Southwest said they have fixed operational problems in recent weeks and that on-time arrival metrics are improving. That should help with some of the staffing issues, especially for flight crews that often have to work extra time when schedules fall apart and for reservation agents who have to reschedule passengers.
