(NewsNation) — U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is looking to hire 200 pilots to conduct surveillance and security missions along the U.S. border, the agency announced last week.
The question is whether the federal government will be able to meet its goal while competing for talent with an airline industry that’s currently facing a pilot shortage.
Air Interdiction Agents (AIAs) — who work as part of CBP’s Air and Marine Operations (AMO) division — fly planes, helicopters and drones to investigate criminal networks and intercept those who are attempting to enter the country illegally, according to the CBP website.
The position is open to pilots with a minimum of 1,500 flight hours, but 500 of those can be waived.
Aviation experts say that flexibility could make the position appealing to someone who is looking to obtain flight time before moving on to a major airline carrier in the future.
“Somebody could go work for the government to build that experience and get what we call turbine time,” said Richard Levy, a retired commercial airline captain.
“Turbine time” is different than total flight hours and refers specifically to the time spent flying turbine-powered aircraft. Those planes tend to be larger and more complex than ones with piston engines, which tend to be smaller and more commonly used for training purposes.
All major commercial airlines have minimum turbine time requirements that a candidate must meet in order to be considered. But those prerequisites have become more flexible recently as some airlines have struggled to staff flights following a surge of COVID-related early retirements and a post-pandemic travel boom.
Earlier this month, Southwest Airlines announced it would cut the minimum requirement for prospective pilots in half from 1,000 turbine time hours to 500.
While the total hours requirement may be attractive to a pilot with less experience, there’s a noticeable gap in compensation between CBP and major airlines, Levy pointed out.
An AIA can make between $100,000 to $120,000 in their first year depending on where they’re located. By comparison, the median annual wage for airline pilots, copilots, and flight engineers recently topped $200,000, according to the Labor Department.
Location is another hiring challenge for the government. New CBP pilots are likely to end up in a region along the southern border. A recent AIA job posting listed Tucson and Yuma, Arizona, as well as El Paso, Laredo and McAllen, Texas, among the places new hires could be assigned.
Commercial airlines, whose hubs are located in major American cities, are able to draw from a larger pool of candidates.
If CBP is able to hit its 200 pilot hiring target it would mark a significant staffing boost. AMO currently has 541 Air Interdiction Agents, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security.
In a news release, CBP says it will use direct-hire authority, which expedites the hiring process when there’s a critical need.
“This hiring authority will enable CBP to offer on-the-spot tentative job offers and compete at job fairs with the airline industry,” Andrea Bright, CBP’s Assistant Commissioner of Human Resources, said in a press release.
The agency is also developing additional incentive packages to “mitigate attrition” of experienced pilots, a DHS spokesperson told NewsNation.
In November, CBP announced a hiring bonus up to $20,000 to attract new agents to address the surge of migrants at the southern border.
Nationally, the pilot shortage is unlikely to go away any time soon.
A recent analysis by Oliver Wyman, a management consulting firm, puts the current pilot shortfall around 17,000 in North America.
The shortage is expected to grow to 30,000 by 2032, although the outlook has slightly improved from previous estimates thanks to rising salaries, faster career paths and greater awareness of the need, the analysis concluded.