After all the dust settles from all of the mergers including AA and USA they will all slightly shrink. Ticket prices will go back up because there will be less competition so the consumer will be forced to pay more. Oil will never go back down in price. There will be retirements at the legacy level which will be promptly filled with regional,charter and corporate pilots looking to make the jump. The regional world will shrink due to the demise of the 50 seater. The legacy partners will keep a fiscal piano wire around the necks of the regionals; everyone will have to do keep their costs down or face going out of business. There will never be a shortage at the AA, DAL, UNI/CAL, SWA level.The regionals will be small enough that it won't take that many pilots to keep the classes full. And fortunately there will be plenty of suckers like myself who will be standing in line to be a airline pilot. If your lucky enough to be one of the pilots who gets selected out of a pool of 20,000 applicants than you are lucky. It is going to be brutal competition. There are folks with multiple LOR's, check airmen experience, family members, friends of chief pilots; all competing for a couple hundred slots a year. I know there are expected to be more retirements in years to come and if that actually happens then great for those who are able to switch uniforms.