American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth) is axing training for new pilots for the remainder of the year, according to Bloomberg. The carrier has cancelled classes for new recruits across September, October, and November, and pilots with conditional job offers will have their training deferred until 2025. Current active pilots are unaffected. United Airlines (UA, Chicago O'Hare) and Southwest Airlines (WN, Dallas Love Field) have also scaled back new pilot training this year.

"We've paused new pilot hire class dates for the remainder of the year as part of the ongoing evaluation of our commercial and talent needs," American Airlines told the impacted pilots. "We expect to make decisions about pilot class dates for the first quarter of 2025 later this year and will provide you with an update as soon as possible."

American Airlines employs over 15,000 pilots and was actively hiring until relatively recently to overcome post-pandemic pilot shortages. However, higher labour costs, inflation, and aircraft delivery delays are reportedly impacting the operations and bottom lines of American and other US carriers.

The pilots keep a fleet of almost 1,000 aircraft in the air, including 133 A319-100s, forty-eight A320-200s, 218 A321-200s, ten A321-200Ns, seventy A321-200NX, fifteen A330-200s, sixty-two B737-8s, 303 B737-800s, forty-seven B777-200ERs, twenty B777-300ERs, thirty-seven B787-8s, and twenty-two B787-9s. American Airlines flies to 354 airports in 63 countries.