There is no substitute for experience. It’s a lesson my father drilled into my conscience—and one that corporate America, especially the U.S. airline cartel, has discarded with alarming enthusiasm. Nowhere is this more dangerous than in the cockpits of today’s commercial airliners, where pilots once forged in military combat are being replaced by fast-tracked cadets with just enough simulator hours to pass a checklist.
Next time you board a plane branded United, Delta, American, or Southwest, consider that it’s unlikely the two pilots flying your aircraft have even the combined experience of Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who made one of the most famous landings in aviation history.
Miracle on the Hudson
On a frigid January morning in 2009, Sullenberger was piloting U.S. Airways Flight 1549 from New York’s LaGuardia Airport when his Airbus A320, carrying 155 passengers, collided with a flock of geese just minutes into the climb, knocking out both engines. His plane instantly became a powerless 70-ton glider hurtling toward catastrophe. Air traffic controllers cleared nearby runways for an emergency landing, but Sully didn’t think he could make it.
Instead, he landed the plane in the Hudson River—with such precision that every passenger survived. A feat soon lionized as the “Miracle on the Hudson.”
While Sully’s derring-do is well known, what’s often overlooked is his background. He was a former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot with more than 20,000 flight hours before that fateful day. He held a master’s degree in industrial psychology and had studied the human factors that cause cockpit errors. He trained in glider operations, participated in NTSB safety reviews, and mentored fellow pilots for years. He wasn’t just flying the plane—he understood it, in ways most commercial pilots today never will.
These days, you’re more likely to be struck by lightning than to find a pilot with Sullenberger’s level of experience flying your plane. In fact, it’s increasingly rare that even a captain and co-pilot combined would match his flight hours. Yet in 2022, President Trump’s nominee to lead the FAA—Bryan Bedford, longtime CEO of Republic Airways—lobbied the agency to cut in half the federally mandated minimum for co-pilot flight hours, from 1,500 to just 750.
The crash of an Air India 787-8 Dreamliner on Wednesday, carrying 242 passengers, should serve as the final wake-up call for Americans to demand a radical overhaul of their airline industry—and the FAA, the captured regulator responsible for overseeing it. Two of the most common causes of airline crashes are pilot error and maintenance failures, and there’s reason for great consumer alarm on both fronts.
The End of the Military Pilot Era
America’s commercial cockpits were once filled with battle-tested military pilots—veterans of World War II, Korea, Vietnam—who’d flown through war zones and thunderstorms alike using skill, instinct, and a healthy distrust of autopilot. For these men, flying commercial jets through peaceful skies was the aviation equivalent of asking a Michelin-starred chef to boil water.
That pipeline began to dry up in the late 1990s, as changes in military force structures and shrinking flight budgets produced fewer qualified veterans. Airlines responded not with caution, but with cost-cutting. They outsourced their short-haul routes to low-cost regional subsidiaries that slashed pilot pay to levels that insulted anyone with options. For decades, pilots were expected to spend years racking up experience in small aircraft before touching the controls of a plane carrying hundreds of passengers.
Sullenberger: The Cassandra of Cockpits
In 2009, Captain Sullenberger used his newfound celebrity to warn Americans about a growing crisis of inexperience in commercial cockpits.
“One way of looking at this might be that, for 42 years, I’ve been making small regular deposits in this bank of experience: education and training,” Sullenberger told 60 Minutes following the landing. “And on January 15, the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal.”
Sullenberger also noted that more than 6,000 commercial pilots lost their jobs in 2008 due to furloughs and permanent layoffs.
“The airline employees have been hit by an economic tsunami. Pay cuts, loss of pensions, increased hours every day, days per week, days per month… I know some of our pilots, who have been laid off, have chosen not to return.”
When asked if he feared that a similarly catastrophic situation could occur again—only without a Sully at the controls—his answer was chilling in its simplicity:
“That just follows, doesn’t it?”
The Colgan Disaster and Its Legacy
Just four days after Sully’s 60 Minutes interview aired, a commuter flight out of Newark, NJ, operating under the Continental Connection brand and flown by Colgan Air, crashed on approach to Buffalo. All 49 people onboard were killed.
The cockpit voice recorder revealed the pilots spent their final minutes bantering about their lack of experience and ability to handle the icy conditions. According to the NTSB, the crash wasn’t caused by the weather—but by the captain’s fatal decision to override the automatic stall-protection system by pulling back on the controls instead of pushing forward to regain speed.
That tragedy prompted Congress in 2010 to pass a rule requiring all first officers or co-pilots on commercial aircraft to have a minimum of 1,500 flight hours. Previously, the only requirement was a commercial pilot’s certificate, which could be earned with as few as 190 hours of flight time.
The Final Blow: A Pandemic Payout
The pandemic proved to be the final blow to the experienced pilot era. After torching billions in stock buybacks to enrich their CEOs and shareholders, major airlines came crawling to Congress for taxpayer bailouts. With the ink still drying, the geniuses who ran those failed businesses offered early retirement packages to their most seasoned pilots.
They never imagined air travel would rebound faster than they could refill the cockpits.
In November 2023, The Wall Street Journal sounded the alarm on the growing problem of “juniority”—an industry term for the shrinking experience level in commercial cockpits.
The Journal reported that U.S. airlines were on track to hire nearly 10,000 pilots in 2023, chasing the previous year’s record of 13,000. That was up from just 5,400 in 2021, which had already been the busiest hiring year in decades. A consulting firm, Oliver Wyman, estimated that 44% of regional pilots were expected to jump to major airlines that year—up from a pre-pandemic average of just 10–20%.
The result? Relatively inexperienced pilots are being promoted to captain at record speed.
At American Airlines, some were awarded captain stripes in under 18 months. Before the pandemic, it typically took four to five years. Delta reportedly promoted some pilots to captain within their first year on the job.
Bedford’s Convenient Amnesia
Curiously, Bryan Bedford—yes, that Bryan Bedford, the CEO of Republic Airways—expressed concern about cockpit experience in late 2023.
“While there’s tremendous experience within the industry, I do have a concern over the experience in seat,” Bedford said at an industry conference. “I think we should at least ask those questions.”
This would be the same Bryan Bedford whose airline asked the FAA in 2022 to approve a plan allowing graduates of its own flight school to be certified with just 750 hours. When the FAA denied the request, Bedford said he was “disappointed—but not surprised,” and claimed that his proposal “would enhance safety.”
If confirmed to lead the FAA, Bedford would have a hand in potentially rewriting the very rule he tried to gut.
Delta’s Toronto Crash
Delta is currently facing 16 lawsuits stemming from a crash at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport in February. The lawsuits allege “gross negligence and recklessness” by the flight crew, who were allegedly “inadequately trained and supervised” by Delta and its regional affiliate, Endeavor Air, which operated the flight.
As expected, Delta denies full responsibility—even though the aircraft bore its name, branding, and reputation. The crash is just the latest reminder of how the Big Four airlines offload operational risk onto low budget regional subsidiaries while slapping their logos on the tail and pretending it’s all one seamless system—until something goes wrong.
In another troubling sign of declining pilot competence, two American Airlines pilots recently flew a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner from Philadelphia to Naples, Italy—apparently unaware that the airport’s runway was too short for their aircraft. The problem came to their attention only during descent, forcing a last-minute diversion 124 miles away to Rome’s Fiumicino Airport.
That incident came on the heels of a near-collision at San Francisco International Airport, when a United Airlines pilot made a wrong turn during takeoff—raising fresh questions about basic training and cockpit discipline.
Meanwhile, United’s proprietary flight school, which markets a pilot’s license in just one year, is now facing multiple lawsuits alleging consumer fraud.
Then there are the growing reports of near-catastrophes caused by maintenance failures, another red flag I’ve documented in earlier reporting. The major airlines rely on a repair shop in El Salvador for much of their heavy maintenance, with United also outsourcing to a facility in communist China. Even if these firms are competent enough, their use means fewer experienced mechanics in the U.S. are working on routine safety-critical systems.
Airlines have become masters of illusion—selling prestige, safety, and professionalism in glossy marketing campaigns, while quietly gutting the very foundations that built those reputations. They want passengers to trust the brand—and not think too hard about who’s actually flying the plane, or who last tightened the bolts on the landing gear.
It’s a miracle that so many close calls have been averted. But you’d have to be a pie-eyed optimist to believe the American flying public is adequately protected from a tragedy like the one India’s citizens are mourning today.