Originally Posted by
saab2000
And that's all good but the total number of qualified pilots is going to become an issue when the retirements start hitting hard in 12 months.
Hiring at majors or contract 'regional' carriers isn't the issue. There will be an issue finding enough bodies starting in about a year or two regardless of what kind of airline it is.
We'll see. I hate to use the word "shortage" because everyone knows how that works but the current system will not produce nearly as many ATP qualified pilots as the number of pilots reaching retirement starting this december. The majors can cherry pick from the regionals but the regionals will have no pool of qualified, legal pilots.
I see a problem starting in about 18 months.
Agreed. Plus now that you will have to have 1500 hours to get a seat in an airliner, I can see flight training dropping off. Back when you had a decent chance of being hired if you made it through your ratings and got to 500 hours people still wanted to start training. At 1500 hours though that carrot will be way to far away. When new students shrink so will the need for CFIs. Traffic watch is almost a thing of the past now. Banner towing is getting a bit harder to break into and most survey companies want 500-1000 hours to get into the door. The traditional low time jobs are drying up. Unless you have a bunch of rich kid that can go buy a 1000 hours it may end up being a shortage at some point.