Originally Posted by
chrisreedrules
It does if an economic event or any other unforeseen event puts a pinch on travel and all of a sudden mainline doesn't need to hire like they have been. I'm not saying it would slow to the Mach turtle pace of the past decade, but it conceivably slow to a point of near stagnation for many.
I think you're underestimating the retirement wave that's coming.
Off the top of my head, out of 35-40,000 pilots at the 3 legacy carriers almost 30,000 of them retire in the next 15 years. That's not even counting anyone else.
There's about 15-18,000 regional pilots in the US.
There would have to be a global economic depression of unprecedented proportions to make a significant dent in those numbers.
The days of large FFD carriers, wholly owned or not, are numbered.