National Commercial Pilot Shortage Impacting Regional Carriers Along With Major Airlines

National Commercial Pilot Shortage Impacting Regional Carriers Along With Major Airlines

PIERRE — SkyWest Airlines announced last week that it’s ending commercial air service to 29 small American airports citing a pilot shortage as the primary reason. Federal officials have ordered SkyWest to serve those cities until replacement airlines are named. Jon Coleman is the Business Development Director for Key Lime Air, which serves Pierre and Watertown under the Denver Air Connection banner. He says the pilot shortage is impacting all airlines…

Coleman says regional carriers like Denver Air are always going to be a, “feeder airline” for pilots who want to move up to a major carrier…

Coleman says they’re looking at the 29 markets SkyWest is vacating to see if they might move in as a replacement carrier, but there are no guarantees that’ll happen…

Denver Air is expanding even without filling the SkyWest vacancies. They recently won the contract to provide Essential Air Service to McCook, Nebraska, and are expected to win the contract to serve Cortez, Colorado. Both of those cities had previously had service from Boutique Air.