Just before the shortage, a friend of mine was illegally fired by a regional airline where he had been a Captain for 6 years. They violated a bunch of laws because they thought they would save a few dollars and a new Captain with 6 years less seniority would save them about 15,000 a year. It all became exposed and liability was clear so then they wanted to argue about damages.

They accused him of failure to mitigate damages because it took a long time to get a new flying job having just been fired. He had several degrees and could have done a lot of things. They argue that he could have made as much in almost any other job as a regional airline pilot. A new manager at Jiffy Lube makes more. A starting computer software engineer made 50% more. They went down a long long list of other jobs he was qualified to do and each one paid more than an experienced airline regional captain. They took the deposition of the guy who cut his lawn and the lady that came in every 2 weeks to clean his house to show that they made more money than he did as a regional airline captain before he was terminated.

There is no shortage of pilots out there, there is only a shortage of pilots willing to start over for 30,000 a year. Most of the pilots at my old airline went overseas after it closed. For the right pay we could get thousands of American pilots to come home from overseas.

Pay me more and I will fly more hours a month. Until then I fly the minimum. If I need more money I will go mow lawns. I get calls all the time from people wanting to come back to flying but they just don't want to take the pay cut.