Originally Posted by
jcountry
There is only a shortage for the crap jobs.
If there were a real shortage, LASA would have found new flying rather than being pretty much shut down.
There is a shortage of people willing to start all over for 1/2 the pay.
Regionals are not career destinations, and never will be. ACA, Comair, and now ASA have proven that. The boys at SKYW may think they are immune, but they are wrong. Once their list gets too senior, they won't be cost competitive-and they will be disposed of as well.
All true.
There is a caveat though...
While majors outsource regional flying to save costs, that does not mean they could bring it all in house and operate it at a profit. Assuming on average mainline FO's would need about $90K and CA's $160K, and the average regional pay is more like $50K/$90K, that's $110K more per crew. Assume five crew per aircraft, that's over $500K more to bring that flying in house. Many RJ routes don't make anywhere near that kind of profit, so those routes would have to go away.
A few could survive by raising fares, if the market supports that.
A few might survive if their fed to a hub justifies operating at a loss, but despite this being a common rationalization of RJ drivers it is NOT the case in every case, or even most cases.
A few high-dollar markets can already support mainline wages for RJ's (ie ASE, JAC, etc)
So the size of the RJ market is dependent to a significant degree on the cost, of which pilot labor is a key component. Any time an RJ driver starts rationalizing why he should be paid to operate at a loss, that's a big red warning flag.
Bottom line, if you want mainline pay and a sustainable career, better go go to mainline.
Good chance if a pilot shortage got severe enough, then many RJ's will go away and others will come in-house. If push comes to shove with pilots, majors could cover three daily RJ flights with one narrowbody, reducing their need for pilots on that route by 2/3's. Problem there is PAX prefer frequency, ie don't want to sit around the hub for nine hours to catch their connection.
RJ's coming in-house depends on how much risk majors are willing to incur with new-hire pilots. If necessary they can quickly dial up the flow of new pilots by paying their way through training...but the current infrastructure is pretty haphazard and the product quality is inconsistent they may not want all of those people on their union-protected seniority list for decades to come. Majors would really need to set-up academy style programs with high standards if they're going the ab-initio route.