Southwest Airlines has reduced requirements for pilots

The American airline Southwest Airlines intends to reduce the requirements for candidate pilots in order to hire more staff. This is with reference to an internal letter from the company to the pilots reports The Wall Street Journal.

So far, Southwest has required applicants to spend at least 1,000 hours at the controls of the company’s fleet of aircraft. But already from February 7, this requirement will be halved – to 500 hours.

At the same time, the company told the TV channel Foxthat the other flying level requirements have not changed, and the new minimum flight hours threshold still “complies with FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) requirements— “b”) or exceed them. In addition, Southwest said it hired more pilots in 2022 than originally planned and will meet its 2023 hiring target well before the end of the year.

Earlier Southwest Airlines failed reported for the fourth quarter of 2022, which ended with a net loss of $ 220 million for it. In addition, the airline warned that the cancellation of flights in January due to failure in the country’s pilot notification system, in turn, will negatively affect reporting for the first quarter of 2023.

Kirill Sarkhanyants