My Crystal Ball
Same as a couple of years ago, here is what my crystal ball says. In the next 3 - 8 years (was 5 - 10 years when I made it):
1. American will consolidate their 3 wholly owned to 1.
2. American, Delta, and United each will have no more than 3 regionals to do their flying. This includes any wholly owned.
3. Alaska will revert to just Horizon doing their regional flying.
4. Skywest will be a survivor. Hard to tell who else will survive.
5. A220s (flown by the majors) will take over some of the 76 seat capacity. The 76 seaters will take over some of the 50 seat capacity. A significant portion of the 50 seat planes will be parked.
6. The number of regional carriers will reduce to 1/4 of the number when I made the prediction. Several have already going out of business or been bought out. This will continue.
7. The number of pilots flying for regionals will be 1/2 of what they were. 20,000 pilots will go to 10,000 pilots. A lot of these slots will be added to the number of pilots flying for the majors. Some slots will go away (fewer 76 seat flights replacing 50 seat flights) driven by the pilot shortage.
8. Because of the pilot shortage, at the peak of retirements the majors will be hiring 4,000 pilots per year from the 20,000 pilot pool at the regionals. This is in addition to the hiring of military and other pilots (135, etc.).
At that point my crystal ball went dark.