Originally Posted by
Bellanca
Since posting on this thread, I spent saturday night with a former co-worker and some of his fellow new-hire classmates. And after chatting with them, I established that 2 (including my friend) had done night cargo, another did 135 pax, one was former 121, and one had been CFIing. From talking to them, most of them had 2000 hours. It totally reminded me of the little discussion in this thread.
Disclaimer: this is just one anecdotal example, but it seems to be representative of the experience of what other friends and acquaintances have been hired with in recent months. It seems to me that at the beginning of the year, the airlines would hire just about anyone with (or close to) ATP mins, but now they are being somewhat picky. It seems to me they are really looking for candidates that have airline or turbine experience, or at the very least have been flying a piston twin bigger than a seminole/dutchess/310. How long they will have candidates to sustain this is definitely a valid question, but the 'shortage' hasn't seemed to hit quite yet.
Depends on your definition of shortage. Great Lakes is desperate. Republic can't fully staff their Q400's. Meanwhile Compass is still being choosy and I haven't heard any problems from Skywest, though they are about to start receiving their E-175's. There are certainly less pilots willing to go to certain airlines now than there have been in the past, which I think you could define as the beginning of a much larger industry wide shortage. It will never reach the level where it directly effects the majors, but I think we will see difficulties across most of the regionals eventually.