As for a worsening pilot shortage, maybe I'm just getting impatient waiting for retirements to kick in in earnest, but we've been hearing "pilot shortage" for two or three years now. I've spoken with recruiters who've said (over a year ago) that it's getting "harder and harder" to find qualified people, but they keep doing it.

Sure, wages have improved, and Republic was having trouble staffing, but not even Great Lakes has gone out of business yet. Every regional keeps chugging along and staffing their flying. Mainline has even begun taking on 717's and E190's, and still real movement is difficult to see.

I guess I thought we'd be further than we are by 2016 after reading The Insanity of Concessions in 2014, in 2014.