Originally Posted by shiznit

This is interesting to the DAL C2015 considerations, but it is a bigger problem the entire industry is going to have to deal with soon.

Agreed with all of the above. Not convinced it will drive flying to mainline, there is a lot of shrinkage in the FFD world that can be absorbed, but the cracks are getting bigger and bigger (aka HUGE) in the DCI/UAX/AE world.

XJT is shedding 100 50 seaters for United this year,
Envoy is steadily retiring EMB44/50's (say 30 this year),
Endeavor is likely parking roughly 40-50 of their 50 seaters,
and ASA is prob. parking 20-30 of their CRJ-200's.
RP is parking their remaining 37/50 seat EMB's too, after gaining some E175's, the net loss will be about 20-30 airframes.

@9 pilots per plane, for 225 planes, that equals roughly 2000 less pilot jobs.

If you add back in the CPZ/PSA/PDT minor growth @ 50 planes for 2015, that is roughly 450 jobs.

Net loss approx. 1500 positions

Now, with the "majors" hiring in 2015....

AA: 600
DL: 1200
UA: 770
NK: 260
JB: 300
F9: 100
SW: 300
AK: 120

3650 mainline pilots wanted in 2015
-1500 RJ pilots with positions eliminated.

That means after they take 1500 civ pilots right off the bat, the Majors will need to find another 2100 pilots from somewhere.

Considering the flows, the majority of leftover seats will come from MIL, so say 1700 MIL pilots have a good shot at landing a gig this year. 200 Corporate guys, and 200 more from RJ's.

How many pilots will gain ATP mins in 2015 to fill the bottom end of the RJ ranks? That is the $64,000 question.

What will happen in 2016? With RJ fleet realignments(AKA shrinkage) still occurring but to a lesser degree, there will another 3600-4000 pilots needed at mainlines, and I'm not sure there will be enough shrinkage in the RJ's to make up the shortfall, and I definitely don't think there will be enough pilots entering the pipeline with fresh ATP's to fill in the remaining seats..

We as a profession need to be looking 2-5 years down the road at what management will try to do to alleviate the problem of their own making (by providing sh@t wages that kept people from entering the career field). There ain't no post- Vietnam or Gulf War glut of military pilots to draw from anymore.... We have to have a plan, or else they will have one and it won't be pretty for us.