By Kyle Arnold From The Dallas Morning News U.S. airlines will need to hire at least 7,000 new pilots next year to fill the gaps created by retiring baby boomers and pandemic buyouts. The airline industry is in its biggest hiring push in decades, not only for front-line employees such as gate and ramp agents but for high-skilled workers such as pilots that need years of expensive training before they can start work, said Louis Smith, CEO of FAPA, a pilot training and recruiting consulting group. Airlines already struggled over the summer with a lack of pilots and other crew members after weather and technical issues resulted in thousands of delays and cancellations. And that was with most airlines flying at schedules that were only about 80 percent as large as what they operated in 2019. The stop-and-go nature of this pandemic has created a whipsaw in the pilot training …