We all know the glory days of being an airline pilot are long since gone. I was born in '73 and by the time I was old enough to understand what careers were, airline piloting was gold! Obviously much has changed today. I opted for other jobs and now at age 40 I regret that decision.

Yahoo recently published a short article discussing the heavy amount of traffic in our air space as of late. And to quote directly from that article:

"Plane manufacturer Boeing estimates that within 20 years, the industry will need 498,000 new commercial airline pilots and 556,000 new maintenance technicians. Finding enough skilled workers to meet that demand isn't going to be easy."

My question is: have any of you already seen a change (for the better) in hiring? And do you feel pilots will actually be in demand in the next few years? I don't know what that leaves for me at age 40, but if I started today I could build quite a few hours by age 45 and if the industry is really desperate, perhaps they might actually hire an old guy?? I imagine a lot of this demand may be overseas (particularly Asia) , not stateside. As much as I'd love to fly I don't think that would be an option for me. It would have to be stateside.

I realize I probably missed the boat, but...well, ya never know. Thought I'd tap the heads of people in the biz that know a helluv a lot more than I do.

Thanks,
James