The pilot “shortage” over the last 2.5 years was a shortage of pilots willing to work for regional wages therefore it was all at the regional level (mainline was furloughing / drizzle hiring). The push that’s about to happen will almost completely be driven by mainline which will drain the regionals to a point that they will be forced to accept pilots with wet CPL’s again. The only question will be how many pilots. I remember reading a report back in early 07 that said almost 35% of the industry will be forced to retire by 2011……….now that’s been pushed back to 2016 with the age 60 rule being change to 65 (Band-Aid). That same report stated that American Airlines is the most senior followed by NWA. I understand that not all of the retirements will come from the Majors/Legacies but with somewhere around 65K+ pilots at those airlines (UAL, AA, DAL/NWA, US, CAL, SWA, Alaska, Airtran, Frontier, VA, Hawaiian, JB, UPS, FedEx, etc) we’re looking at a need (if things stay at our current levels) for over 22K pilots. Where are they going to come from? Mainly the regionals who don’t even have 22K flying for them. Add to the equation that the regionals will also be retiring many of their own pilots and you can see that by 2016 things could get very ugly………a true pilot shortage might actually occur……..? That is if our economy rebounds, which will eventually happen.

I also was told some very interesting statistics about American by a current AA CA. He said (take it for what it’s worth) that AA is set to retire more than 4,200 pilots from the current list (furloughs included) by 2016 and that 80+% of their seniority list is over 40 years of age; also that the youngest pilot on their list is 33 years old. That means that if you can get hired with AA when the doors open, you could be 40% up the list in 5 years and Maybe (?) a CA shortly thereafter. Now if you get hired on the back side of the serge, say in 2016 and beyond, you’ll wind up on reserve for years with very very little movement. You'll probably be furloughed a few times since there is now 40% of the pilot group sitting right in front of you and you won't upgrade to CA for 15 to 20+ years now that your pilot group is much younger. If you get stuck on the back side of the push it will more than likely a better decision to stay at your current airline (probably moved up quickly do to the push) than move on. Those who are hired near the end at the regional level are in for a very long and very frustrating career on or near the bottom.

PS. Keep in mind that many things may and will cause the actual numbers to go up or down.