The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating nearly 5,000 pilots who withheld mental health concerns and other ailments that may bar them from flying.
The news comes as the nation is in the midst of a severe pilot shortage, partly due to the mandatory retirement age and partly due to the pandemic, early retirements and buyouts.
The problem is that many of the current pilots fear being disbarred so they don’t disclose the mental health information or other problems. It’s also a very lucrative position with some pilots pulling down six figures or more a year.
“Some of them really don't have a lot of faith or trust in the FAA, and that's understandable. But keep in mind too, the majority of U.S. airline pilots have labor unions, and these are more safety organizations every bit as much as they are labor organizations,” Boyd Group International President Mike Boyd, an expert on aviation, told Yahoo Finance.
“So that's probably the refuge they should take because they have professionals who can work with that. Let's keep in mind, this is a very, very small percentage of people in that pilot population.”
But Boyd said that there are safeguards in place with the FAA and airlines to notify other carriers when a pilot is let go. He brought up the reference to the Chinese pilot who flew his plane into the ground. There were no indications, Boyd said, that the pilot had any problems prior to the flight, other than being demoted.
“It’s not something the consumer should be really worried about,” Boyd said.
Still, that doesn’t mean pilots aren’t under daily pressures from the labor shortage.
“Well, they're under probably as much pressure as before, the problem is they may be doing some more flying. But keep in mind, there are limits to what they can fly,” Boyd said.
“Now, there's always been arguments between airline crews schedulers and pilots that goes back to ancient times, I think. But the reality of this is that there are limits to what they can fly, and airlines and particularly pilots unions are working very hard to make sure pilots aren't flying out there tired and hungry, if you will.”
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