Originally Posted by
MrSkywest
The term "shortage" is a political term, not an economic term. In a free market when the demand rises the compensation should rise until the supply meets the demand. The airlines have been holding down the pay and talking "shortage" when the problem is lack of pay. I have a lot of experienced friends who are not going to work for 35k a year. Along with commute or other costs it is not worth it for a lot of guys who don't have 30 years left to fly. Show me the money and there will be a lot of pilots who will come fly.
You can call it whatever you would like. Like you say it's a term. The word shortage simple means we don't have enough as we need.
If I don't have enough money to pay my rent, I will have insufficient funds. That does not mean that there aren't funds in someone else's possession or elsewhere in the world or that I can't make changes that would increase my funds, but as far as I would be concerned I would currently have a shortage of funds.
Now you argue that they exist they just are actively flying. Great. But many of the ones you speak of have zero interest in ever returning to the 121 world or even aviation at all no matter what the pay. Some have been burned too many times and are now content with their career in other fields and being home every night with their families. Also some of those guys likely can't come back to the 121 world even if they would like to. Some likely medically and some at an age that wouldn't make any sense to restart from the bottom.
I agree there has for many years been (and still is) a pay shortage. But you're lying to yourself if you don't think the pay shortage created a pilot shortage. It caused people to go into other industries with no intention to return and stunted new pilot interest with low pay and high cost of training.