Nine thousand applications shotgunned out by 9000 applicants to fedex, ups, AA, UAL, Delta, SWA, Alaska, Hawaiian, SWA, Jet Blue, Spirit, and Frontier. Half of those are from FOs who barely have the posted minimums to apply or people who have never bothered to get that college degree or have multiple serious training failures or other potential disqualifiers.

The other 4500 are all competing for one of the 2700 slots being opened up by age mandated retirement at the legacies (+fedex, UPS, and SWA) in the next 12 months, or one of the 1700 new positions caused by growth at SWA (once the MAX gets flying again and they can get their Hawai’i flights going), the expansion at fedex and ups, the expansion at UAL, and the growth at Frontier, Spirit, and Jet Blue.

Partially offsetting that is the 1000 or so military FW aviators who will be getting out and who may not have YET put in their applications.

So most of the FOs are going to have to wait another year or two for their 1000 TPIC before they are truly competitive. And some people are going to remain at regionals until they get that degree or live down their disqualified. Either that or go work for Moxy, Kalitta, or (gulp) Atlas.

Of course in the next several years the number of retirements will continue to rise