I'm glad the analysis is helpful.
You are correct we can safely assume eventually Regional FO’s will make it to upgrade after a significant number of years. You make a very interesting point concerning percentages of pilots interviewed vs hired at specific Regionals as they seek to find new pilots. One of the reason’s my analysis is not very concerned about this is the number of people still receiving Commercial and CFI licenses in the US each year.
AOPA’s
report indicated over 8000 commercial licenses were issued in 2010, and over 4000 CFI licenses issued in the same year. Assuming just half of those CFI’s would like to go on to the Majors and a quarter of the commercial license recipients have other ways(banner towing, cargo, etc.) to get sufficient flight time to move on to the airlines. That is over 4000 qualified searching applicants for the Regionals to hire.
Most regional pilots can expect the Delta TA to be a shadow of things to come, and can safely assume most regionals will see 25%-40% reductions in fleet size over the next 8-10 years. Let’s say we ignore this assumption and assume the Regionals will have to replace each pilot that goes to the majors, 1 for 1. At the hiring peak with the current numbers of pilots in the pipeline and continue to come down the pipeline, there will still be 125-150% of the necessary pilots to replace those that move to the Majors.
However if we see a significant reduction of pilots getting license’s from the current numbers over an extended period of time, we may begin to see hiring problems if it’s still 1 for 1.
I don’t share this to take away hope; my hope is that pilots being armed with better information can make better decisions. It’s true someone who spends 210000$ on flight training would probably see this information as bad. To spend almost a Quarter of a Million dollars on an investment that has the kind of return the numbers are showing, would be questionable at best investment practice. However someone who gets a 4 year degree from the local community college (in Business or Basket weaving) and then spends 20000$-40000$ on flight training might view this information completely differently. It depends completely on the individual, but what will be good for everybody is if Rationalization comes back into the equation.