MESA, Ariz. — On the ground at Falcon Field Airport, a white Cessna with blue stripes holds two people inside.
“Prop clear!” SimpliFly Chief Pilot Jordan Cortez shouts.
The plane roars to life, and Cortez and student pilot Dolly Woodhall continue through their checklists.
They address the weather and test the breaks and controls before taxiing toward the runway.
Cortez is teaching Woodhall the flight lesson on the windy Mesa day.
The two clear their departure before Woodhall begins her takeoff.
“She’s gonna do a great job,” Cortez said.
“Yes, I am,” Woodhall replies with confidence.
'Best time to get into the industry'
It’s another hour in each of their flight caps, as they’re both aiming to work for commercial airlines, which have been experiencing shortages of pilots.
The pandemic exacerbated the shortage – the Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest data projects there will be nearly 18,100 openings for airline and commercial pilots annually through 2031.
“We’re a small piece of the puzzle,” said JT LeSueur, co-owner of SimpliFly, a flight school out of Falcon Field. “We’ve got American, Delta, United that are saying that they’re going to lose between 500 and 800 pilots a year.”
The pandemic is also why SimpliFly exists.
LeSueur is a former used-car salesman who became an airline pilot a year and a half ago.
But he was supposed to start back in 2020.
“April came around, and I was instructing and realized I wasn’t going to the airlines,” LeSueur said.
That’s when LeSueur said he opened his flight school with the airplane he bought for all his own training.
Now, he’s teaching students like Woodhall and Parker Reynolds out of seven different airplanes.
“I’ve talked to many pilots. They said right now is the best time to get into the industry,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds said he recently quit his job to pursue aviation full-time, with the end goal of being an international pilot for Delta.
“I try to get up to four or five hours a day flying,” Reynolds said.
Opportunities are available at the airlines right now, LeSueur said.
“I’m seeing guys that used to take six or seven years to get to the next step, being able to do it in less than a year,” LeSueur said. “I was able to move on from my first airline within a year. I'm very grateful for that. I actually owe the pandemic, that opportunity, in a lot of ways.”
Staffing shortage fallout
Staffing shortages are among the reasons passengers have been experiencing delayed and canceled flights over the past year and a half or so.
Over the Labor Day holiday, TSA said the agency screened 8.76 million passengers. That’s more than they screened over the same holiday weekend in 2019.
But, with more passengers flying, it means more pilots are needed.
“The big thing is time. You need a lot of time to get to the airline level,” LeSueur said.
It takes three to four years of each pilot training to get their required 1,500 hours.
“It’s incredible how just repetition and experience makes you more complete pilots,” Cortez said. “So when you get to the airlines, you’re ready to go.”
Cortez is about 100 hours away from the required 1,500. “I’ll start at SkyWest Airlines in about four weeks,” Cortez said.
'Yep, I want to do this'
Woodhall is also working toward that goal.
It was a roommate in college who Woodhall said got her interested in flying.
“She was a flight instructor for Utah State, and I thought, ‘Wow, I wish I could do something like that,'” Woodhall said.
She’s been working on her hours since January of 2021, but it was the first flight that had her hooked.
“I was like, ‘Yep, I want to do this. This is amazing,'” Woodhall said.
FAA statistics show just 8% of all commercial pilots in the U.S. are women.
“I feel like I’m going into a man’s world, and I feel like as a woman, I feel like it’s such a boss move,” Woodhall said.
It’s being in the air that makes the hours worth it and keeps those learning or already trained coming back.
“It’s addicting. I almost tell people, ‘Don’t try it, because then you’ll do it,” LeSueur said.
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