Originally Posted by
tom11011
There is probably an easier answer to this question where a true picture can be seen in very short order.
If one person from each regional airline who has kept their older seniority lists can post the total number of pilots on their roster for August of 2017 and August of 2016, that might show the trend.
I don't have access to old seniority lists atm, but at Trans States we have steadily hovered at 560 +/- 15 for the past 2 years. The current list has 572, and we dipped down to about 540 last fall when upgrades temporarily stagnated and the AA wholly-owneds raised their compensation package, then we've had a small uptick in numbers with the FO bonus and upgrades picking up.
My personal observation over the almost three years I've been here, there's been a lot of turnover of FOs, and the top maybe 30% of the seniority list hasn't had much movement. Of the senior guys there's been an occassional checkairman move up to delta/ FedEx/etc, and a few retirements. Of the people getting on at majors, it seems to be newer captains and some senior FOs that have been lucky enough to get the call. Then in the bottom part of the seniority list, there seems to be a lot of people going to LLCs and playing the regional shuffle.