First...there is not, and there has never been a pilot shortage. In a "real" labor shortage, a type rated airline pilot with a clean record at Jetblue or Spirit should be able to give Delta a call and get an interview and class date. There are no "pools" or anything of the sort.

Is there a shortage of high school age kids who are unwilling to take on a couple of hundred thousand dollars in debt to make less than a truck driver for a handful of years and run the risk of seeing their salary top out around that of a Wal-Mart store manager? You bet there is.

This is the sort of created labor shortage the C-suite whines about when they want to hire $9 an hour engineers to build the MAX over at Boeing, not a real one.