How many pilots are on American Air Lines?

American Airlines is a well-known airline company which occupies one of the key positions in the international market. American Airlines is a major provider of air services headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas – the company provides international as well as domestic flights, with 6,800+ flights daily, covering over 350 destinations in over 50 countries. Due to the large operation of the airline, we find that American Airlines requires a large number of pilots to fly its aircrafts. But more to the point, how many pilots have the company, this giant of an airline, namely American Airlines?

This is just about 15,000 pilots that work for American Airlines as of this year, 2022. This means that American, has one of the largest pilot workforce among the airlines in the world. These pilots are involved as the pilots of regional aircraft, small up to the large airplanes like Boeing 777 and Airbus A330. These are very skilled professionals and their task is to ensure the safe transportation of millions of passengers annually.

There are several different categories of workers in the company; however, the over 15,000 pilots in the American Airlines are officials. The main group is the Mainline pilots which are about 9,956 in number. Express pilots are the captains of the regional aircraft while Mainline pilots are responsible for flying the larger aircrafts such as the Airbus A320 family, Boeing 737, Boeing 757/767, Boeing 777 and Boeing 787 on both domestic and international routes. Mainline pilots, therefore, are extremely experienced, well paid, and may actually fly longer legs than those in regionals.

Regional pilots in addition to the mainline pilots working for American Airlines are over 5,500. These pilots operate regional jet and turboprop aircraft which comprise the airline’s short haul operation that provide feed into American’s domestic network. These regional pilots are employees of American but the regional carriers American uses including Envoy, Piedmont, and PSA airlines employ these pilots. However, American employs and interacts with these regional pilots as part of their own system within the regional airlines. The regional pilots are therefore relatively inexperienced, poorly paid and restricted to operating aircraft with a seating capacity of less than 100 people, For instance, the Embraer E175.

In addition to these two major pilot groups, American also has dedicated pilot bases for its wholly-owned and chartered cargo and charter subsidiary operations. Many cargo flights are B777 and B767 dedicated cargo freighters operated by Atlas Air and American Airlines, and 350 pilots fly AA Cargo. And Executive Airlines, which is one of the American’s affiliates that chartered flights for sporting teams, corporate and military using B737s and B757s, has been known to hire about 150 charter pilots.

Thus, accounting for mainline, regional, cargo, charter, and reserve and supplemental pilots, American Airlines systemwide is estimated to have 15,000 pilots approximately. Unfortunately, this number can change throughout a short period of time because of pilot retirements, new hires, and other operational factors. For instance, American had a pilot count of over 16,000 employees before the COVID 19 outbreak, but early retirements and the freeze on new pilot hiring led to a decline in pilot staffing. However, now, as we see travel starting to return, American’s plan is to add several thousand pilots to its roster in the years to come.

These 15,000 pilots from the American Airlines are without doubt the workhorses of the airlines since they are charged with the responsibility of safely flying thousands of flights with even more thousands of passengers and crew on board. Since the company aims at providing the best services to its customers, their piloting skills, experience, and professionalism are vital to the success of American’s airline. This is a huge pool of employees that must be trained and developed to optimum levels, given their volume. But American knows that it needs the best of the best pilots to offer customers the safety and services that are unmatched in the industry. Our pilots range from brand-new flight instructors to experienced B777 captains with 30 years under their belt; each member of American’s pilot team demonstrates dedication each day to take millions of people to their desired destinations.

Thus, while most of the passengers may encounter 1 or 2 pilots in the cockpit when boarding a flight, they are just a fraction of the over 15,000 talented and dedicated officers, who keep American Airlines’ air fleet in the sky. It is a huge operation to ensure that American planes and passengers are kept in continuous safe and smooth movement across the world. With future plans to become even larger and soar even higher in the coming ten years and even beyond, the demand for pilots of American Airlines should therefore continue to rise in the future. This is because the challenges facing this market are numerous and unpredictable; the road ahead remains a bumpy one for the airline industry. But whichever kind of sky is out there waiting for american, it can always rely on the the massive and highly trained pilot force to steer the airline towards clear skies and better flying.