As the US pilot shortage continues, Southwest Airlines is increasingly finding that pilots are using the Dallas-based airline merely as a launchpad to more quickly jump from regional flying to Delta Air Lines or United Airlines in a practice it calls “résumé washing.” It’s the latest twist in the ongoing pilot shortage in the United States.
Claim: Pilots Join Southwest Airlines With A Premeditated Plan To quickly Jump Ship In A Process Called “Résumé Washing”
Andrew Watterson, Southwest’s Chief Operating Officer, coined the term “résumé washing” and sums it up in this way:
- US network carriers like Delta and United tend to hire regional pilots from their own affiliates rather than from other carriers
- Lately, however, regional pilots have noticed a stall in hiring or become impatient, especially when pilots from freight carriers like UPS and FedEx are offered lucrative sign-on bonuses to pivot to commercial airlines
- Regional pilots are getting around this by joining Southwest with the specific intent of only staying long enough to get hired by Delta or United
Watterson points out that the trouble with that is that Southwest spends thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours training them only to see that investment dumped to pivot to a larger carrier with more growth potential. He told The Dallas Morning News that these regional pilots “know that if I get Southwest or another airline on my résumé, I can get to where I want to go.”
“So they use us as a premeditated way station. They come to Southwest, get hired, trained, spend six months and then they flip their résumé and apply somewhere else.”
Carriers like Delta and United actually have an incentive not to hire their own regional pilots because those carriers, like SkyWest or Mesa, are experiencing a greater pilot shortage than the larger carriers they fly on behalf of. If you hire too many of those pilots, even more regional routes will not be able to operate.
I have not mentioned American Airlines because its regional carriers are wholly-owned subsidiaries and the pipeline for moving from regional to mainline is more defined than it is for Delta or United.
This practice of “résumé washing” makes a lot of sense when you consider the huge difference in pay, over the years, between flying for Southwest (which only operates Boeing 737 jets) and a network carrier with widebody jets:
A 40-year career as a pilot at United or American is worth about $22 million in pay, benefits and retirement packages…compared with $16.3 million at Southwest.
Quite a difference that justifies the leap, even though it means starting on the bottom of the totem pole again…
I cannot imagine, though, that this is a wholly new phenomena, particularly for young pilots.
CONCLUSION
Southwest Airlines is claiming that more pilots are joining the Dallas-based carrier with a “premeditated” plan to jump ship as soon as possible, in a practice it calls “résumé washing.” Noting the competitive realities of pilot hiring in the US right now, this practice is likely to continue even after Southwest pilots ink their new pay deal, which could be coming as soon as this week.
image: Southwest Airlines