Originally Posted by Sliceback

I'd think it's too optimistic. It's easy enough to make a better SWAG - go to the MIT Airline Data Project, click on 'The DATA', research several airlines (I'd recommend AA/DL/UA), click on the bottom link - employee data and analysis, and figure out what the actual growth rate is. Quick estimate was AA has approx 40% more pilots today than it did 25 years ago. That's 1.6% but on an annual basis it's 1.4%.

https://web.mit.edu/airlinedata/www/default.html