I do not challenge the claim that maybe 70,00 pilots work for major airlines. That's not far off. But, not all those people make such great money working for that major airline, and by your own claim this statistic means 50% will NOT work for one of the majors and you know what that means (low paying regionals). That's not very good compared to engineering. You also neglect to mention the heavy additional costs of getting pilot ratings plus and the extra years of low wages involved in getting there. You also skipped over the not-so-little things like not getting home daily as a quality of life issue, fairly high risk of furlough, risk of losing a medical, and the overall competitive nature of the major airline jobs. I'll pass on it. I am not opposed to someone wanting to do it if they so choose, but they had better know what a long-shot it is and how they are more likely to get stuck at a regional than get a well paid major airline job. Your chances of success are better in engineering.