The problem here is that everyone foaming at the mouth about pilot shortages actually believes the fairy tale that we live in a free market economy and that the supply/demand price curve from Econ 101 (which I'm guessing they don't bother to teach at Riddle and UND anyway) works anymore.

If you follow that basic macro-economic theory, as the number of qualified workers declines, a company will have to pay more to attract better candidates. However, in this Walmartized world, the real world, instead of incentivizing employees to (in this case) staff and improve productivity, the exact opposite is happening. Since profits happen to be shrinking at the same time, regional airline management is coming and demanding concessions, with the threat of complete job loss as the stick. No carrot. Plan B, already in motion, is to whine and lobby lawmakers to change the rules so they can go back to hiring wet commercial licenses and continue to pay poverty wages. Plan C will be the multi-crew licenses that the ICAO is already on board with, with maybe a little Age 70 thrown in for good measure with a hint of empty promises. Legacy/major carriers have no shortage of applicants, but the tipping point is coming at the regionals, why do you think EndeavorToDelta just reared it's ugly head. It isn't about getting people to Delta, it is entirely about getting people to the pilot ghetto at Endeavor. Otherwise, wouldn't they just pay more at Endeavor? There it is. There is no room in this playbook for paying pilots higher wages. The house of cards that is the regional model won't allow for it. The only worry that Legacy carriers have that while they have absolute disdain for their regional partners and their scummy pilots and keep trying to grind them into the carpet to work for free (or better yet, you pay us to fly for us!), they need their precious feed. Don't for a second believe that United is interested in buying 100 seaters to fly to MAF and MOT. They get more from regionals than the regionals get from them, or they wouldn't still be doing it, rhetoric about the 50 seater being an expensive and dying airframe notwithstanding. DAL might be operating slightly smarter with the 717's coming online, but there is still a lot of country out there where real people with money who like to travel live these days, and they can't all support 100 seat jets. The entire paradigm is probably going to have to shift, again, just don't hold your breath waiting for that raise.