While air traffic is on the rebound, challenges remain in the industry

By Sam Easter

Going by the data alone, one could argue North Dakota’s airline industry makes a good comeback story.

Passenger boardings had crashed during the pandemic — falling in 2020 to less than half their 2019 level and, at their lowest levels, leaving even major airports empty and quiet. But figures tracked by the North Dakota Aeronautics Commission show that in 2022 air travel rebounded almost all the way back to pre-pandemic heights.

The numbers don’t lie: in 2022, the NDAC tracked 1,028,159 boardings across eight airports. That’s 170% of the boardings it tracked in 2020 — when air travel cratered — but 98% of what it tracked in 2016.

Passengers are back at airports. The pandemic’s vice-grip on aviation has finally loosened.

But while industry observers celebrate the rebound, many of them point out that it’s still not as robust as it could be — held back both by airlines’ labor shortages, which crimp available flights, and by the advent of remote work, which many suspect is capping the number of travelers who have returned to the skies.

“If we had the same amount of flights and seats available today as we did pre pandemic, we would probably already be back to pre-pandemic levels,” said Kyle Wanner, director of the NDAC. Airlines are struggling to add more flights amid workforce shortages, he said, leaving many flights relatively full, but options for flights more limited.

“When you look at the load factor of flights around the state, they’re averaging currently around 84%,” Wanner said, referring to how full flights are at takeoff. “Which is, historically, a very high load factor. Anytimes it’s around 80% or higher, the airlines are very profitable.”

Kim Kenville, an airport management professor at UND, said the problem is a pilot shortage — one that was driven before the pandemic by a lack of interested applicants. But now, after the pandemic, it’s been compounded by training issues, as pilots who were grounded during lockdown often still need to re-update their training to get back in their air.

And that’s just the pilots.

“I don’t know if you’ve flown lately, but you get to a gate and there’s no one to park the airplane, there’s no one to unload it.” Kenville said. “We’re kind of short all the way around.”

On January earnings call, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby pointed out that the pilot shortage continues to bedevil the industry — among other difficult factors.

“We believe any airline that tries to run at the same staffing levels that it had pre-pandemic is bound to fail and likely to tip over to meltdown anytime there are weather or air traffic control stresses in the system,” he said. “(Manufacturers) are behind on aircraft, on engines, on parts. Across the board, there are supply chain constraints that limit the ability of airlines to grow.”

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And it could continue to pose a problem for a while longer. Shawn Dobberstein, the executive director of the Fargo Airport Authority, points out that falling numbers of high school graduates (a figure expected to decline in coming years) could make labor shortages worse — in aviation and beyond.

“So when you look at bodies that are going to be available to fill seats in airplanes or hospitals or tech companies or gas stations or hotels, they aren’t going to be there,” he said. “It’s a birth rate issue.”

The current shift in flights doesn’t always mean fewer passengers can get seats. Dan Letellier, the executive director of the Sioux Falls Regional Airport, pointed out that it’s also possible that more seats are being grouped onto bigger flights — though that can also pose a problem for passengers.

“You still may have the same number of seats per day to that destination,” he said. “It’s just you have far fewer flights. And you might say, well, that’s OK. That’s OK. Unless you go into Denver, and you have a six or seven hour layover to your next flight instead of 60 to 90 minutes.”

Remote work impacts

But there’s another issue flagging flying: remote work. Some observers see it as a reason why business air travel hasn’t rebounded as quickly as leisure air travel; others see it as a kind of competition for jobs throughout the aviation industry.

“Are you going to take a job that you can be in your pajamas at home? Or are you going to stand out in 40-below weather throwing bags on an airplane?” Kenville asked. “Our location isn’t negotiable. We’ll never be a remote-work (industry) because everything happens at the airport or in the airplane.”

Travel experts around the upper Midwest have seen varying results in their communities. In some places, business travel doesn’t seem to have slowed. In others, Like Sioux Falls, local leaders are still climbing back to pre-pandemic levels.

“We are working the market hard but bookings are taking longer,” Teri Schmidt, CEO of Experience Sioux Falls, said in an email. “We’re finding some are choosing to simply cut back, others are choosing to continue with remote work and meetings, and some are truly delaying their conventions and meetings.”

Daniele Villa, president of Visit Duluth, said he couldn’t speak specifically to business travel — but he said his organization is seeing event organizers look for more date flexibility in their schedules.

“And even in terms of numbers, probably there is an increasing number of events, but smaller, so they want to keep it like probably more regional, yet not back to big international or nationwide travel,” he said.

Not everyone is feeling the pinch. In Fargo, Charley Johnson, president and CEO of the Fargo-Moorhead Convention and Visitors Bureau, said he’s been pleased to see what looks like full recovery by the end of 2021. Local hotel revenue that year, he said, was higher than 2019.

Even where travel is still recovering, all agree that it will bounce back soon. It’s just a matter of how long it takes. Wanner said he’s hoping to see flight numbers in North Dakota fully recover by the end of the year.

“That’s a goal, obviously, of the industry,” Wanner, the NDAC chief, said. “We’d like to see that happen. Whether it happens or not is yet to be seen.”