No, it's not a shortage.

If I have ten dollars in my pocket and plan on spending it, it's not a problem when I have ten to put back, and if I have a thousand and spend ten, without ten to put back it's still not a shortage. It's a drop in the bucket.

The "pilot shortage" has been a myth used to sell flight training and placement services for years, a daring of the kit darby lie, and still popular. After 09/11 a third of the flight schools in the country rolled nipple-skyward, and still no pilot shortage. We're on the heels today of a slow down and training backlog, and delays caused by "lack of crews" aren't due to a "pilot shortage," either. We don't have one. Don't equate future retirement to a shortage, and don't mistake present hiring for a pilot shortage. We've seen this material before.

When the furloughs begin and the curtain climbers who dragged themselves out of the soup for their shiny jet job, having patted themselves on the back so much it gave them a bruise on their shoulder as they congratulated themselves on their seniority numbers, the same will the children who howl the loudest about the unfair nature of it all. It's not a shortage. It's just seems that way to those who haven't been around long enough to know.