Skybolt, your post is spot on and I don't think anyone disagrees with the sentiment. ATP as a minimum standard is great. But after looking into my crystal ball, I predict a serious problem. However, there are many changes on the horizon that many of us do not see coming, no matter how hard look. It’s still fun to try.

Allow me to paint a picture.

It has been remarked and become generally accepted that regional level flying has become a career peak for many pilots. At the company I work for, it is especially true. You can point to a variety of reasons for this, but I will not spend too much time in this post on that issue.

The senior captains at regional can break 100k a year if they work really hard and are creative. Their monthly guarantee will approach it. I don’t know an average, but looking at the pay calculator and using the highest paid senior captain, I calculate about 92k pre tax, pre insurance, pre retirement. How much do they take home? I don’t know. Is 60% a good guess? 55k? Maybe 70% for 64k? For arguments sake, 55k-64k take home pay AT THE HIGH END.

Now, imagine you are a 17-20 year old (or your child, nephew/niece or friends child) is pondering their post high school life plans. They Google airline pilot pay. APC comes up first. Maybe they look at Delta, AA, or FedEx and their eyeballs get big. A little more research later, maybe they see some news links. The story is getting out there that pilots do not live the glory life that has been painted from the past. Some younger folks will decide to take the gamble anyway (let’s face it, the best pilot jobs are still awesome for pay and QOL).

A new reality IS being painted, however. Some will decide it’s not worth the investment for the return. I am guessing based off my crystal ball image (more like a foggy magic 8 ball), that more and more will see flight training cost are going up while the pay and QOL is going down. My guess is that flight training cost will become prohibitive to entering the career. A cash strapped, but talented person will more likely take the medicine, engineering, military, law, etc…route. Even though medicine and law are expensive educations and give no guarantees, hard work will still pay off.

The airlines will still have to staff their airlines. How will they do this if the supply is going down but demand is staying the same or rising? Are they still going to depend on the same flight schools we have today? I just don’t see more affordable flight schools being profitable competitive businesses without subsidizing. That potential issue opens up a whole new can of worms.

The only thing I can see happening is that the current method of flight training has to change simply because of cost. You already see some morphing in training syllabus at places (like ERAU) by becoming more simulator heavy.

Beyond the initial training, there is now the issue of attaining ATP minimums. How are these students going to attain ATP minimums cost effectively? I mean cost that are justified by reasonably expected returns.

CFI jobs? That’s traditional. I still have a problem with the idea of instructors and mentors being only a couple hundred hours and maybe a couple years older than their students. After looking back, I blame **** poor instructors on ¼ - ½ my flight training cost. God knows how much I cost my own students.

The military will NOT supply enough pilots in the future to staff the airlines needs, not even at the mainline level.

Multi Pilot License? That is certainly NOT in keeping with your “ATP minimums” sentiment. I personally think the idea of MPL is ****. However, I am not very confident that flight training cost can be cut to a level that justifies the current system/method of becoming a professional pilot. MPL seems like a natural progression. Chances are, pilots with less real air time will still fill our flight decks.

We are still a few good years from seeing any huge morphing, but these things don’t change overnight. They are gradual. My prediction is less and less FBO style flight schools and larger flight training centers that are heavily simulator based. The cost of fuel alone almost dictates this (Yes, it will go way up again). An airline could own and operate a program like this. It would reduce flight training cost, allow them to screen their candidates and allow them to pay their pilots low wages. If someone doesn’t have to spend a small fortune to get the job they are more likely to have an opportunity to do it and accept lower pay.

What will happen to flight instruction? Obtaining a CFI CFII and MEI is very expensive and arduous task. Hopefully flight instruction will take its rightful place as respectable career or end of career profession. Less flight schools = less flight instructors. To be a cost effective instructor you also have be a talented instructor. That’s tougher done than said.

My predictions don’t even take into account what influence FAAs NextGen program or what E170s and E190s will have. Regardless if my prediction is accurate or not, there will be fundamental changes in “how things are done.” We know this because the industry has been in a constant state of change over its entire history. It will be different than what we are used to.