Originally Posted by Zoomie

Fast forward to 2018... 9/11 happened... Pan/Am and TWA went under... Age 65... Oil Crisis... Scope farming of mainline flying to Regional flying... The regional job used to be one of many stepping stones to a major back in the day. With the expansion of regional airline flying post 9/11, regionals were doing more domestic flying than their mainline counterparts, or close to it. This is partly why Pan Am/TWA ceased to exist. They were unable to control their own domestic product and when international traffic took a dive, they were done.

Right now, one thing needs to happen to reduce the pilot shortage...Shrink the regionals. That's it. If the regionals become a small subset of mainline again instead of the behemoth they have become, they will once again become a stepping stone to more jobs at the majors instead of what equates to more than half the time it takes to accrue a full retirement in the military.

Only about 2-5% of regional guys "want" to stay at the regionals. The paradigm is to gain experience, then move on. Right now we're missing the ability to "move on".

So when little Lucy or little Johnny asks their uncle/aunt how long they were at the regionals before they got hired at SWA/AA/United, when they hear 10-15 years, most kids would rather go to Med School, Law School, start a business, etc.

At least if you put 10-15 years in the military, you can still get a pension from the reserves or guard, and feel patriotic for doing so.

Make the regional stop-over a 3-5 year gig (about the time to get an advanced degree) and you will have no more threat of a pilot shortage. A 2nd option would be to have the pay/benefits at the regionals so that you wouldn't have to "Stomach" working there or be sacrificing your family's future for a "chance" at a better job. Of course the 2nd options defeats the purpose of having "regionals", which is a nicer way to say B-scale/C-Scale labor.