It depends. If all you are doing is listening then yes it sounds like that. When I was hired here 5 years ago the majors were hiring like it was going out of style. You could get a regional job with a wet commercial. Things were moving and they were moving fast. Then age 65 came down. I knew then that the boom wouldn't last much longer and it didn't. A year or two after that announcement everything came to a screeching halt. Add on top of that the current economic situation and boom, stalemate.

I knew that I would be stuck here for a bit longer than I thought. I knew that my "future" plans would be on hold for 3-5 years. But the numbers don't lie. For the last few years the only people leaving the airlines were those that were fired, lost medicals, new jobs, or just gave up on the industry. There aren't enough of those people leaving to really justify a lot of hiring. However when REAL attrition starts the airlines will have 3 choices. Keep the same size fleet and hire to cover attrition. Grow and cover attrition. Or get rid of planes and shrink as pilots start to leave. I don't think Southwest will say, "Well we had 100 guys retire in the last quarter so we have decided to park 10 of our 73's so we can be properly staffed."