Here’s my wild predictions:

AAG buys Mesa and in 5 years Mesa / PSA merge and Envoy / Piedmont are merged. 90% of the American Eagle regional flying will be done by these 2 WOs and the only civilians that make it to AA go through them.

RAH buys the TSH regionals and they are all folded into Republic.

SkyWest grows for now but will begin to retract within the next 5 years.

Endeavor continues to grow their Delta Connection feed and will likely eventually get some sort of no-interview flow with a couple strings attached (ie degree required etc)

Horizon keeps on flying for Alaska and ends up with a better flow deal.

There will be some sort of consolidation of the United Airlines regionals. United will likely have to figure out how to purchase a regional or two to secure their regional feed long-term as both American and Delta slowly shift towards consolidation and in-house flying with their regionals. Air Wisconsin may play a part in this somehow.

Overall I think that the supply of pilots willing to fly at the regionals will find a balancing point. Right now I hesitate to even call it a shortage since everyone is still managing to fill classes for the most part. More a, “squeeze” on the pilot supply than anything else. I think though that once the legacies start pouring more money and support into the pipeline at the entry-levels this will slowly work itself out. I don’t think a true shortage exists. But I think the industry is going to go through a period of intense change over the next 5 years.