Originally Posted by eaglefly

It wouldn't surprise me to see a very low show rate, but if so, it would be no different for most regionals including Eagle. Fact is, there is a tsunami coming in the regional F/O business. The legacies and LCC's will likely not have a problem for several years finding pilots and you can usually keep older, senior regional captains, but VERY few pilots are in the pipeline for where it's going to be needed most and you need to fill the right seat to operate those jets. The college programs will fill a fraction of the needed requirement and outside of that there is virtually no one. My local airport is now a ghost town and the pattern is deserted on beautiful weekend mornings when in the old days it would be full, many of which were future airline hopefuls.

It will be interesting to watch the apparently clueless executives of the legacy carriers and "Big 3" networks figure out how to solve this impending disaster to their business models. SWA and other LCC's will benefit most and Delta made a step in the right direction putting less dependance of RJ's with their 50-seater for 717 move, but the others who are setting themselves up to depend on their in-house regionals or outsourced commuters may find their global networks crippled at the domestic feed level and watch brand new 76-seaters go from Canada or Brazil directly to Arizona for a scorpion fest in the next year or two. I still have my popcorn ready for the inevitable 3 stooges warm up to this comedy show. Of course, then they'll coming running to mainline unions begging for help, but this time they'll have to anty up. Fact is, they went too far in turning this profession into that of a glorified bus driver from a compensation persepective and now the ultimate result of that will soon be evident. They wanted that so bad they could taste it and have been intoxicated on that philosophy for the last 10 years. Well, sooner or later the hangover kicks-in and now it's time to pass the Ibuprofin.

"Be careful what you wish for" comes to mind.

The "proactive" moves I see so far are feeble at best and are but a fraction of what is needed. Eventually, they will come to the sobering realization they'll have to actually make this career attractive to get people to want to do it and in the long run it will have cost them more the way they did it (gutting airline pilots) vs. a more modest realignment of pilot compensation. You can smell this coming like dogs&#t.

I for one, can't wait.