Originally Posted by
stoki
Hope you're right, rickair..
Personally I won't believe it until I am able to pick and choose who to work for, and do it for a respectable wage.
Yes if the perfect storm brews up, there may be a lack of experienced applicants for airlines. But this industry is too volatile, and in the mean time a million things will happen that will slow hiring, and give the training departments time to catch up. A huge **** storm is brewing in the middle-east as we speak, and already fuel prices are jumping.. and if it takes a wrong turn, especially say in a place like Saudi-Arabia , it could be disastrous for fuel prices, and that means the worldwide economy as well.. and that leaves us back at square one.
That's the real bogeyman, oil. I won't sleep easy until alternative jet fuel production facilities are up and running at commercial volumes.
Originally Posted by
stoki
Just don't believe it will ever happen, looking at things realistically. Maybe there will be more job offers out there, but not a shortage. Europe is saturated with high time guys, or noobies still willing to pay $30k for their own TR for a better chance at a job.. and more continue to do so. Asian countries are putting thousands of their own future pilots through the mill.. it's only a matter of time before they catch up. Here in the U.S, when word gets out about the pilot shortage again, places like ATP will have their hands full once again..only hope in that regard is that 1500hr rule, which I also don't think will hold up if there are no people to fly the planes, they will find a way around it.. always comes down to the bottom line, and in favor of big business.
Unless the wages and QOL improve, they might not get as many noobs as they would like. GA is getting more expensive every day, and lenders have pretty much wised up to the game. Unless the entry-level wages and stability are good enough for borrowers to make their payments reliable, the banks are no longer interested. By the time someone works long and hard enough to save $100K to self-finance a career transition, they are probably a lot wiser...they may not fall for a pilot academy scam if the payoff is $20K job.
You will always have a few trust-fund babies, or clueless kids with equally clueless parents who will second-mortgage the house to pay for ERAU or the like. But I think the word is out on the profession and most folks are getting the message.
I'm not convinced that we are ever going to see a feeding-frenzy of hiring at the majors, but I think there's a possibility of reasonable career progression. If it comes down to a real pilot crunch, the majors will just fold up their regionals, absorb those pilots, shift RJ flying to narrowbodies, reduce frequencies, and drop service to Podunk Falls.