CLEVELAND — With travelers taking to the skies once again, airlines are looking to fill massive shortages in pilots, and a pilot with more than 60 years of experience encourages others to learn the profession if they’re willing to put in the work.


What You Need To Know

  • Larry Rohl has been flying for 62 years

  • Rohl owns T&G Flying Club in Cleveland

  • Major airlines are hiring more pilots as demand increases

Flying is Larry Rohl's favorite thing to do, but he never expected to make a life out of it.

"Electrical engineer by education, but my hobby took over my life a long time. So I haven't had to have a job in many many years," said Rohl.

He first started flying as a young boy.

"My father had bought a little Piper Cub, one seat in back one seat in front, and made out of cotton stretched over aluminum parts and we had that in South Dakota," said Rohl. "So when I was 14, he bought that plane. When I turned 16, the legal age to fly solo, then I flew solo and that was 62 years ago."

Rohl opened his business, T&G Flying Club, in 1976 and has taught thousands of pilots how to fly. Now, major airlines are looking to expand their pilot talent pool.

"Flying is not near what it was back in the 80s and 90s. Although now, because of the pilot shortage the airlines are looking for pilots and the business is really booming again," said Rohl.

With travel picking up again, airlines are now looking to hire pilots to keep up with demand.

Delta Airlines stated in June its plans to hire 1,000 new pilots by summer 2022. United Airlines said it is hiring 1,500 pilots by next year and 3,000 by 2023. American Airlines plans to hire 350 pilots by the end of the year and 1,000 by 2022.

Rohl said anyone looking to make a career change should think long and hard before making a decision.

"Maybe it becomes more work than you thought it'd be. It's not just manipulating the controls going up and down and left and right," said Rohl. "Like I said, there's all this other mechanical stuff you should understand and so I see a lot of people that get up close to their thousand hours and they decide maybe this isn't what I want to do."