Originally Posted by
Wash out
Can anybody else see that we are headed toward a massive M1 Visa issuance to import willing candidates. The airlines have a half dozen contingency plans already thought up. In "Silicon Valley" the local politicians responded to the tech lobby to solve a similar "shortage" by granting hundreds of thousands of visas for tech workers. Instant mass migration of foreign workers willing to accept any conditions. They will get their cheap pilots.
There aren't that many qualified foreign workers out there though. We are the world's cheap labor when it comes to flying airplanes.
Europeans and Asians come to the US to learn to fly. It can't be done cheaper elsewhere. That also means we get a significant amount of the "general aviation employment" flight hours out there for our collective pilot group to work towards meeting ATP requirements.
Pilots from the US are leaving in droves to go fly in the Middle East and east Asia. You will see some of these pilots return, and maybe some foreign nationals coming to fly here... but only when we offer a better deal than they're getting where they are now. That will only happen if pay goes up significantly.
As long as the hardline of experience requirements is still there, we'll be ok. If it is ever waived... maybe for MPL or something like that... thats when we need to worry.