WASHINGTON/CHICAGO (Reuters) – Mesa Air Group Chairman and Chief Executive Jonathan Ornstein told a U.S. Senate panel on Friday that the airline lost nearly 5% of its pilots in April as larger carriers hire from regional carriers.
“Last month we lost almost 5% of our pilot workforce as major airlines and operators of larger jets hired our pilots,” Ornstein told the Senate Commerce aviation subcommittee in written testimony ahead of a hearing in Arizona Friday.
“Given the significant increase in cost and time required to become a pilot, there are just not enough pilots to go around.”
(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago, Editing by Chris Reese)
