The Airline Industry in the United States is projected to post $4 billion in profits for 2010 according to the chairman of the newly formed United Continental Airlines.
Glenn Tilton, speaking to an industry group in Washington, D.C., said the airline industry has been hit in recent years by overcapacity and an economic recession that drained travel demand, but carriers are recovering impressively.
For example: The Air Transport Association of America (ATA), the airline trade association for the top U.S. airlines, today said that it expects a 3.5 percent year-over-year increase in the number of passengers traveling on U.S. airlines during the 2010 Thanksgiving holiday season. A total of 24 million air travelers are projected over the period, with daily passenger volumes ranging from 1.3 million to 2.5 million.
“It is reassuring to see travel levels rebounding, with the stronger economy,” said ATA President and CEO James C. May.
The resulting expansion in the airline industry will increase the need for new airline pilots in both the near term and into the future over the next decade.
Louis Smith is the president of FltOps.com, which is an online information service for aspiring and professional pilots. Mr. Smith, a retired Northwest Airlines Captain, commenting on the need for new airline pilots to serve the expanding airline industry said recently, “The four factors that created the depressed job market are now disappearing. The mandatory retirement age to 65, elimination of the third pilot, oil prices at $147 per barrel, and a severely depressed economy will soon be a distant and bad memory.
All the airlines are starting to show record profits even in a weak U.S. economy, and that has never happened. They have shown some remarkable restraint in expanding their schedules, but now they will have to expand since demand is recovering so quickly.”
Annually, commercial aviation helps drive more than $1 trillion in U.S. economic activity and nearly 11 million U.S. jobs.
