Originally Posted by
jakeinthesky
I've been saying this for awhile. It's clear that as long as there's a demand for labor from the top, the regionals will continue to shrink, mainline will do more of that flying or cut the markets that they can't/won't serve. The LCCs are now having smaller pools to choose from and they have a bigger FO attrition rate than CA with the golden handcuffs effect, so it seems logical that the next step for them is to expand their hiring of 1500hr CFIs outside of their current partnership programs. I think we're in a growing pains period right now where the market is taking time to reach that point but I foresee that being the norm in the next 2-3 years, barring a large drop in demand.
This^^^^
Except that 2-3 year period of no hiring at the regionals itself will decrease the willingness of people to continue training to go into the field, which will itself exacerbate the shortage at the majors just as DOT and Congress are pressuring them to be better able to avoid and more quickly recover from scheduling meltdowns and their unions are using their newfound leverage to get better QOL provisions in their contracts, both of which will require additional staffing.
And with three legacies still dependent on regional feed, yeah, they are going to be a lot more likely to hire from ULCCs and handicap a competitor than hire from their own regional feed, although hiring away competitors regional pilots will persist - certainly enough to maintain the regional CA shortage.