United To Hire Hundreds Of Pilots Anticipating Pent-Up Travel Demand

United Airlines plans to hire hundreds of pilots soon, a process which the COVID-19 process delayed, CNBC reported Thursday (April 1).

The airline, based in Chicago, is the first large U.S. carrier to announce it will resume hiring pilots. That’s a sign that recovery could be on the horizon.

The airline plans to start with around 300 pilots hired who had conditional job offers or training scheduled before the pandemic. The last year has seen airlines urging workers to take buyouts, early retirement packages or leaves of absence, looking to cut costs during the pandemic. United and the pilots’ union reached an agreement to get away from furloughs. That included reduced hours for junior pilots, and some of those jobs are suspended because of federal aid.

U.S. airlines lost $35 billion last year, but they expect their fortunes to change. The recent $1.9 trillion COVID-19 aid package passed by President Joe Biden included support for airlines, which barred job cuts through Sept. 30.

Air travel demand has been trending upward, with the Transportation Security Administration screening an average of 1.2 million people per day. That’s an increase of 15 percent from a year ago when the pandemic had only just set in and put a stop to almost all air travel.

That said, those numbers are still a fraction of what it was like pre-pandemic, CNBC said, and business and international travel are still almost entirely stalled. But United CEO Scott Kirby has said that domestic leisure demand is recovered “almost completely.”

United’s revenue fell 69 percent in Q4 2020, according to PYMNTS. The company raised over $26 billion in liquidity, according to management, and has been making progress toward decreasing cash burn to ensure survival.

At the end of 2020, United reported $19.7 billion in available liquidity.

In Q4 2020, the company reported $19 million per day to cover cash burn. That was an improvement of $5 million a day since Q3.