Originally Posted by
todd1200
I could be wrong, but I took the author to mean that Legacy airlines were exposed to the risk of shortage due to their regional feed. When Connection/Express carriers can't attract applicants, Legacy passengers will be affected. I don't think the author of the article was saying that mainline carriers will directly experience a shortage of applicants. LCCs are exposed to less risk due to the fact that they operate all of their own flights and don't have to worry about regional partners staffing their flights.
That's also what I thought it was saying. But I disagree with the conclusion. So what if a few tiny markets disappear? It won't be many. So much of the RJ glut is the failed Fred Reid et al model of "the businessman likes frequency!" of hourly flights from every hub by every airline to every city. It was stupid then and its even dumber now. There is still a LOT of slop that can come out of the regional so called "feed" system.
There is also a lot of regional capacity that can be replaced with mainline on a 3 to 1 savings for staffing.
Other than perhaps dinging the 100% completion and on time fantasy metrics, we're no where near a regional pilot supply crunch actually endangering the legacy airlines.
Besides, legacy airlines can ramp up LCC pilot hiring any time they want to. Now THAT could crush more than a few business models out there.