I heard the same thing from the chief pilots. If I recall correctly it went from about <~20 FOs eligible to they think 60-75. Plus there's still going to be new people hitting the 2500tt mark every month. Plus theres new hires like myself in the training pipeline and in ioe that were hired as FOs, but now meet upgrade requirements or are within a few hundred hours of mins.

Attrition is the big variable that nobody knows. And depending on how that turns out will decide if they need to hire another wave of CQs later this year and how many.

With that being said, anyone that can jump in on the CQFO bandwagon, it's probably still a good deal for people looking to leave their current regional. You'll get some PIC time, and at least $44 per hour for making the switch. And an upgrade shouldn't be too far down the road.