Occasionally I've had access to a pretty good crystal ball. Here's a few predictions:

The "sweet spot" in the domestic market is going to move from 70 to 100 seats to 130 to 150 seats. Barring changes in scope, this will make growth opportunities as outsourced flying return to mainline aircraft. The perfect platform for this flying has not been built yet. The AirBus and Boeing products are too heavy and too capable (expensive) for this market.

Age 65 retirements are right around the corner. The hiring wave in 2013 to 2014 will be substantial and will continue for a while.

Profitability will remain illusive for our employers. Government will fail to come through on airspace modernization and will seek to penalize aviation as they see carbon taxes as a way to raise revenue and look good at the same time. Terrorism, fuel prices and contagion will continue to be difficult to plan for risk factors.

Due to the lack of profitability fleet renewal among the more established airlines will be slower than it needs to be. It will be difficult to finance the aircraft needed to remain leaders in the international marketplace.

Labor will continue to face threats from alter ego low wage competition. Multi crew licensing and alien ab - initio programs will supply the marketplace reasonably well. The supply of General Aviation and Military pilots will dry up. General Aviation itself is dying and it's death will also reduce the interest in corporate aviation except for the very high end.

There will be some small market resurgence for turboprop flying. The efficiency and capability of these platforms simply make so much better sense for a lot of the RJ flying being performed today.

Airline wages will increase, but will trend with, or trail real inflation. ( even FedEx and UPS pilots make substantially less than they used to as inflation has reduced their real earnings ).