College degree.
 

I know pretty much all the regionals will say "4 year degree preferred", but what do you think is the reality now and in coming years?

Is it hard to get hired with no degree?

At a regional? No. At a legacy, LLC, freight, good 135/91? Yes.

I would say in the near future 3-4 years a college degree will be the last thing the legacy or LCCs will require. If you are contemplating on going to college or not I would at least start on some online degree like UVU. You don't want to be left on the sidelines because you guessed wrong.

There are 10s of thousands of people with applications in at a major. I would assume that a large majority of them have college degrees. Don't expect them to get rid of a college degree requirement.

Many airlines have officially done away with the requirement... But much like flight times, there is the minimum required, and the actual competitive minimums. I still think we are years away from a college degree not being looked at, it could happen though.

Yeah looking at the who's been hired section they all pretty much agree it's more of a requirement than preferred for the majors.

At the regionals I don't think they care outside of your flying ability and knowledge.

Regionals don't care about a degree, just a pulse and an ATP. Majors have tens of thousands of apps on file and do require or highly desire a degree. You'd be at a huge disadvantage without one. It doesn't have to be a $100,000 certificate from ERAU or one of the other pilot factories. Any degree from a properly accredited school will check the box. Ideally, it's best to have a degree in a real field completely unrelated to aviation that you can actually use during your eventual furlough at some point in your career.

I think a degree is more of a requirement than what the posting says, but they don't want to exclude people that don't hsve one but have something very desirable to make up for it like being a sim instructor or former military or Check airmen (although there's plenty of those). I would count on needing it for a very long time because there are so many apps, there isn't a pilot shortage at mainline level. Also it's a wise idea to have a degree as a backup God forbid you lose your medical.

The flow to AA from Piedmont does not require a degree