With demand roaring back, lots of pilots from regional airlines have been able to land jobs at the major network airlines, leaving regional carriers without qualified pilots. Republic asked for exemption to 1,500-hour ruleRepublic is an Indianapolis-based regional airline that operates nearly 220 Embraer E170/175 jets on behalf of American Eagle, Delta Connection, and United Express. You may have flown with Republic without even realizing it, given how the marketing of regional airlines works. Republic’s logic for the request was that the airline runs its own pilot training academy, called LIFT (which stands for “Leadership In Flight Training”). In 2013 the requirement for new airline pilots was increased from 250 hours to 1,500 hours, which is a massive increase.

Source: Forbes September 21, 2022 04:51 UTC