Originally Posted by
Wingtips
1. first you can pay for training, and put people straight to the right seat, thats how many parts of the world do it.
2. have the guy in the right seat not a real pilot, again how most of the world does it.
3.increase use of unmanned aircraft, this helps free up pilots for aircraft that need pilots.
The only curve ball I see is, I would like to see the stats of how many people are going overseas for better jobs. Also someone is going to come back and say, that the number of new pilot certificates issued has no really decrease, but the bulk of those are all over seas pilots who come here to learn.
1. This could be an option, however I don't know if it will be very effective.
2. I understand this could be and has probably been looked at as an option. However this would be a really tough sell to the FAA and public, and I can only imagine the outrange if there were an accident attributed to not having two qualified pilots.
3. Unmanned aircraft? You will not see passengers on unmanned aircraft and the military doesn't operate enough UAV's to have the ability to release enough pilots to have any effect on this industry.
Personally I think the most objective and plausible answer is simply bigger more efficient aircraft flying less routes requiring significantly lower numbers of pilots. I wouldn't be surprised if the regional industry as we know it today is dissolved / abandoned within the next decade.