Labor – Skill shortages, pay and productivity

Airlines spent 2021 and 2022 striving to rebuild workforces that were slashed during the pandemic. Airline employment has now retuned to close to normal, although some skilled roles remain in high demand and the dynamics of the labor market have shifted. Employees at most North American airlines, particularly pilots, have unprecedented leverage in the latest rounds of negotiations. Will those operators be successful in gaining some productivity improvements to offset some of the labor costs increases? Have the pay increases already instituted by some airlines succeeded in retaining pilots? Have training bottlenecks that hampered some US operators last year smoothed out?