Air Fares

We were told by the owner of X Lounge that our high air fares are caused by Puerto Rico owning the air space used by SXM. That does not make sense to me.

Anyone know if there is any truth to this at all?

Sounds pretty lame to me since EVERY airfare I have booked or looked at for ANYWHERE is much higher...

I don’t think it holds water either. Just wanted to see if anyone had solid info.

We really need Southwest to add SXM as a destination. If they were going to do it before Irma why not when the airport is up and running again at full strength?

Not true

So ridiculous ! Probably more supply and demand or just because they can until they get the public and gov out cry's.

Over flight fees for Puerto Rico are determined by the FAA. Those fees are standardized and are as follows:

**There are only two different rates for flying through US-controlled airspace. Flying over US land, the "en-route" rate is $61.75 per 100 nautical miles. However, when flying over ocean monitored by the FAA, that rate drops down to $26.51 per 100 nautical miles.

And, Puerto Rico does not "own" SXM airspace.

The high fares are because of to much demand and to few pilots.

George--is the pilot shortage beginning to abate, or will it be with us for quite a while yet?

Our neighbor at the beach house is a captain for Jet Blue, and during Covid, a lot of pilots took early retirement. The airlines offered packages based on age; he wasn't old enough to get the best buyout, so he's still flying, but a lot of the older pilots did. I guess that's at least part of the reason for the pilot shortage, and I don't see how that will change anytime soon, as new pilots must be trained and meet the required hours to fly commercial flights. I also guess (and this is purely speculation, not based on any knowledge at all), that flying into SXM isn't one for the newbies.

For sure, I know that a lot of pilots took retirement during Covid, and that is the initial cause of the pilot shortages. George is a pilot (for Delta, I believe). Since he's on the front lines, I was just wondering what his thoughts are, as to how long it will continue.

My brother is a retied pilot (AA) but trained as a pilot in the navy. He left the navy to take a job with AA - many, many years ago. He claims that in those days employment for the airlines as a pilot had salary and benefits far superior to the navy's, but that is no longer true. So the pipeline for trained pilots from the military that the airlines used to enjoy no longer exists. He also claims that the Covid funds allotted to private employers to avoid laying people off were used by the airlines to retire the more senior higher-paid pilots early. If true (he's not always the most reliable source) it's incredibly aggravating to think our tax dollars helped to create the pilot shortage that now has us paying higher air fares.

Those early retirements were funded by the American taxpayers with the CARES act. It wasn’t the airlines money they were giving out for early retirement packages. I have a couple of neighbors who worked for United and they sure got some sweetheart deals! Sure wish I could have got something like that when I retired. No brainer for them to retire.

That's insane!!! What these airlines are doing is killing tourism!! Things were going good on the island. Then Irma, she ripped the island to shreds. 2018, she's making small steps back. 2019 Getting better but the big bomb to yet hit! 2020 Covid, crushes the island! NOTHING nada coming or going! No money to be made!! 2021 Doors opening slowly. It's now 2023 and the money isn't coming in!!! People like us want to come and spend money! But the airlines are choking us off!! So who the "F" are they spiting??? SMH!!!

Don't know if PR owing air space has anything to do with ticket prices but it's true that PR has control over air space from SXM. If a flight's delayed too long leaving SXM the airline has get approval departure time from PR.

That’s what I was told by one pilot also, except he said all departures from SXM Are cleared by PR.

Most of the questions asked here have been answered. A couple of things to mention. US airlines don’t pay overflight fees to fly in US airspace. The FAA airspace system is free. They do however tax the airlines left, right, backward and forward in other ways. Mostly that involves airport use fees, fuel taxes and passenger fees.
There is a FAA enroute facility in San Juan. They control a good chunk of Caribbean airspace. Not all of that airspace is under positive control as they don’t have radar coverage throughout the area. Much of it is done via position reports and estimates. SXM is under SJU control.
As far as the pilot shortage it’s a combination of many things but the main areas are a vastly reduced supply of military pilots, regional airline pay and a panicked reaction to covid by the airlines. On the military side most people are unaware of how much smaller our military is verses even 20 years ago. They are training a fraction of the pilots they once did. The percentage going to the airlines has not changed there just are far fewer to start with. The civilian pilot pipeline was crushed by airline managements in the 2000 to 2014 time frame. There was a surplus of pilots and airline managements took advantage of it in every way possible. Wages were so low that most regional copilots and some captains qualified for federal assistance programs like food stamps. Some airlines like the prior incarnation of Silver Airways had copilots flying for free trying to build hours. Low pay combined with horrid work rules led to a collapse of the civilian training pipeline. The final problem was the major airlines extreme covid panic. They all took federal bailout money meaning they could not furlough employees. Instead they offered very generous early out programs using tax payer money. Delta as a example let 1800 pilots retire early. They have not caught up today and still can’t fly the schedule they want. This is on top of a very large wave of normal retirements. The shortage is so acute that regional copilots who 10 years ago started at 18,000 a year now start at about 100,000 a year and get up to a 150,000 signing bonus. The old saying that you reap what you sow comes to mind. Management greed when they had a surplus is killing them now.
The pipeline for training pilots is still not rebuilt. Issues include a lack of instructors and training aircraft. Foreign airlines have locked up a significant portion of flight school slots in the US. Training aircraft are hard to acquire and US liability laws simply won’t allow new aircraft to be built at a reasonable cost. 50 year old Cessna 172’s that ten years ago sold for 25,000 now go for 100,000 and more. Flight school starts are way up and the pilot problem should ease but projections still show a shortage for at least 3 years and the regional side will probably never return to the number of aircraft they flew 5 years ago.

George--thanks for all the good info!

Excellent report....THX

Wow, thank you for the summary, George. It all makes so much sense.