Originally Posted by flybywire44

There is a shortage of cheap experiance at the regional level, but I believe this may largly be corrected by many trends such as regional and mainline aircraft upguaging. The 50 seats are going to start disappearing exponentially. As a result, Pinnacle pilots are migrating to other airlines such as ExpressJet. But have ExpressJet or SkyWest lost any significant number of 50 seat aircraft yet?

Other regionals may also go out business such as Comair, but I think we'll see some cargo operators like Omni do so aswell. Increasing pilot compensation may excite pilot recruitment numbers, but it will also place more cost pressure on airline tickets. At some point higher pilot costs may cool travel demand.

But worst of all the economy is not recovering. This may solve the pilot shortage in the not to distant future. The floundering US economy with shrinking real GPD, endless money printing and fake unemployment numbers could further cool demand. If the US economy is shrinking than so to will the airline industry.

And heaven forbid we have another aviation related "terrorist" attack. Personally, I always worry about "terrorism" when we have a lack of US military engagement. So if Iraq and Afganistan are pulling down now than what's next? Supporting terrorists in Syria against Russian and China backed Assad just doesn't seem like enough to keep the US military industrial complex feed.

Someone mentioned automated reduced pilot compliment aircraft. This may be the future, but surely this is 20-30 years away. In the meantime, I think the economy will "save us" from a real shortage.

But no matter what, it is certain that hiring departments will be very busy hiring pilots... You see, majors have no shortage of relatively cheap labor!