Mesa Air's CEO also hopes to launch a pilot development program in Arizona. $MESA
— which was put in place in 2013 — that requires pilots to fly 1,500 hours before being able to fly for commercial airlines. Ornstein said the rule is not based in any science and said that because the cost of getting access to a plane for that long can be extremely high, it can take years for pilots to reach that many hours, which can serve as a barrier for many people to enter the profession.
During the early days of the pandemic when commercial air travel all but stopped, industry experts did not know how long it would last and many airlines assumed the slowdown would go a long time. With that mindset and wanting to avoid mass layoffs and huge labor costs, many airlines encouraged pilots and other employees to retire early.
“When we started to do the research, it became clear that there were these aircrafts that burn so little fuel — knowing that you could stay up for three hours — it was well worth the expense of fuel,” he said. “They are little airplanes. They are super modern. They have an excellent safety record. They are used for training all throughout Europe because Europeans are much more sensitive to fuel prices.
“The investment is not a lot of money, and to be frank, the upside is so great, if we could just bring in another 50 pilots sooner, we’d pay for that whole investment in just a couple months,” Ornstein said. “While companies that are struggling don’t normally buy new airplanes, we are struggling because we don’t have pilots. We have to solve the problem.”
The program will be open to people who have commercial pilot licenses but do not have enough hours to operate a place commercially. Pilots accepted into the program would be allowed to fly up to 40 hours per week on the trainer aircraft and would receive flight benefits through Mesa Airlines and get priority status for employment as first officers at Mesa once they have enough hours.
Despite major lobbying efforts and even after he testified at a U.S. Senate hearing over the summer, Ornstein doesn’t believe Congress will change the 1,500-hour rule. He said it is up to his company and other smaller and regional airlines to work around it.
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