Originally Posted by
Reservist
Kinda sick of hearing there will "never" be a shortage at the majors.
Only the regionals huh?
Isn't that "regional" flying needed by the majors? You think they'll sit idly by while routes and aircraft go unstaffed? And They're unable to get passengers into hubs to get on international "mainline" flights.
All the flying is eventually going back in house, the first ones to do so will be able to staff their network, the ones that don't or are slowest are going to have EMB 170s and CRJ 900s sitting on a ramp somewhere with no one to fly them. Call it what you want.
Morgan Stanley sent a note to investors last week. Here's what they said
A shadow-supply of licensed but currently inactive commercial pilots may mitigate some of the wage pressure at the regional level, but the gap between current starting pilot wages today and what is necessary may be as high as 2X
The "shortage" won't affect mainlines for quite some time. Brands are shrinking their "regional" footprints. UAL has announced 131 aircraft are coming out of ExpressJet by the end of 2015 with only 70 backfills for the system. Delta will shrink from 638 DCI in 2012 to 425 at the end of 2015. Some of the capacity is going to mainline, but many of the pilot block hours (jobs) are going away.
So no, not all the "regional" flying is needed or wanted by the brands. Pay increases at the regionals will enable them to recruit new pilots or get ones that have left the profession to return. It will also make them less cost effective for their mainline partners. And there are way more current regional pilots that want mainline jobs than there are mainline jobs projected to be available this decade.