Pilot shortage hitting Kelowna
American-based airline cancelling some flights to Seattle
The global pilot shortage is hitting Kelowna airport with the cancellation of some Horizon Air flights to and from Seattle.
“The industry has been forecasting a pilot shortage for some time now,” said Kelowna airport director Sam Samaddar.
“While it's not something specific to Horizon, it’s Horizon flights that we’ve seen cancelled here in Kelowna. Over the last month, about three or four cancellations.”
Horizon Air is the subsidiary of Alaska Airlines that flies 74-seat Q400 turbo-prop planes on regional routes such as Kelowna-Seattle and Tri-Cities-Portland.
Three or four cancellations in a month is not a high percentage when you consider Horizon flies three times a day between Kelowna and Seattle for a total of 90 flights a month.
However, the cancellations are a big deal if you happen to be one of the passengers booked on that flight and relying on it, and/or a connection through Seattle, to get to a business meeting or to or from a vacation.
And the cancellations are additionally concerning because they are becoming an industry trend.
It all comes down to demographics and economics.
Baby boomer pilots are retiring in droves and there’s not enough new pilots to fill cockpits.
In addition, it costs about $80,000 to attain a full commercial pilot’s license, an expense few young people with the dream of flying can burden.
“Part of the solution could be to make the education cheaper,” said Samaddar.
“And a foreign-worker program would help. Many countries have pilots with lots of flying experience from their time in the military.”
The shortage also means the socalled legacy airlines such as Air Canada, WestJet, Alaska, United, Delta and American hire aggressively from the regional carriers, such as Horizon, Pacific Coast and Central Mountain Air.
The move-up effect creates gaps at the smaller airlines leading to scheduling problems and, in the most extreme scenarios, cancelled flights.
“Smaller airlines can also try to retain more pilots by playing up the advantage that pilots can work for them and be back at home every night to sleep in their own bed,” said Samaddar.
“Pilots for the big airlines might see the world, but they also live in hotel rooms a lot of the time.”
Horizon has had to cancel hundreds of flights across its network this summer as it grappled with the problem.
Pacific Coastal Airlines flies between Kelowna and Castlegar and Kelowna and Victoria.
Central Mountain Air covers the Kelowna-Prince George route.
Samaddar doesn’t think the pilot shortage will lead to Air Canada or WestJet cancellations in and out of Kelowna.
In other Kelowna airport news, Air Canada is planning ahead and has announced a second daily non-stop flight to Toronto, starting next summer.
This past summer, Air Canada flew between Kelowna and Canada’s biggest city non-stop daily, before scaling back to weekend service for fall, winter and spring.
Next summer, the airline will have two daily flights, a daytime option as well as a red-eye.
This past summer, WestJet operated two non-stops daily to Toronto, a daytime service and a red-eye.
It has reduced service to daytime daily currently, but is expected to come back with its twice-daily schedule for the busy summer.
As some domestic routes ease up for the winter, sunspot service amps up.
This winter, WestJet, Air Transat and Sunwing airlines will offer non-stops to Phoenix, Las Vegas, Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta, Cancun and Varadero.
A non-stop to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic was discussed with Sunwing, but won’t become a reality for this winter.
As the Southern Interior’s hub airport, Kelowna serves 1.6 million passengers a year and also has non-stops to Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Whitehorse.
Kelowna airport is also working on securing non-stops to a second U.S. hub such as Chicago or Minneapolis and a European hub such as Frankfurt or London.