I have seen this from two different sources:

According to AA HR:
In 2007, they had 13,000 resumes on file who met their minimums.
In 2017, they had 3,000 resumes on file who met their minimums.

In 2018, UAL announced they are planning to hire 1200.

1200 hires at UAL puts the AA resume bucket down to close to 2000. Then, take out the AA/DAL/SWA/UPS/FedEx hires in 2018, and you have close to 1000 resumes left, plus a few additional, for the 2019 hiring year...

According to a Hawaiian pilot:
Jan, 2015, HA had thousands of resumes on file.
Spring, 2015, HA had hundreds of resumes on file.
A new contract was signed shortly after...

HRs everywhere will be getting more and more desperate...

Everyone keeps thinking the stack of resumes is static. New apps come in daily, pilots come off AD; corporate pilots get the bug to move, Army helo bubbas get fixed wing time. There is a tightening of supply, but that’s normal when lots of hiring is happening.

GF

But in the 80's there was plenty of supply to back that kind of hiring spree. Now not so much. There is the crux of the problem.

BTW the military puts out a fraction of the pilots it used to on the civilian market. There are a lot fewer aircraft in the military compared to the 70's and 80's coupled with longer enlistment times = less guys hitting the market.

Plus the Airforce is a little short these days if I recall correctly.

Not really true, funny enough the “10,000 apps on file” is the same number used then with similar declining numbers of apps. The military had a big drawdown after Vietnam; the VN generation were hired in the lead up to the ‘73 and ‘79 fuel crunches and suffered their own “lost years”. I was a ‘76 UPT grad and fewer than a 1,000 AF pilots were graduated. With more carriers and more requirements due to F/Es, hiring was big and reducing supply. AA had to increase its second tier pay to attract enough applicants. My class at EAL was mostly civilian—Navajo and Beech 99 commuters, corporate, cargo guys, only 3 or 4 military.

Everyone is so used to surplus pilots, they believe the current hiring is a crisis. It ain’t; it will worked out with upgaugjng, minor service cuts and, in the corporate sector, bidd8ng up of T&C. There we agree.

Being pedantic, pilots don’t enlist, they’re commissioned.

GF

I think you are over simplifying things. If it was that easy then tens of thousands of people throughout the workforce would decide they are not second rate to their company’s CEO and decide to wave their magic wand and become the CEO.

Yes, I know I am also over simplifying too. But it’s a free market and as long as there is somebody doing your corporate job cheaper than you then the wages will always be lower than that of airline pilots. Regardless of your self-respect. Unions: love them or hate them they have leveled the playing field. From Day 1 everybody at the airline knows what’s expected and how they will be treated. The pay scales are set, the schedules are set, the work rules are set. The contract is your life.

In corporate the decision makers will always compare you to their buddies whose pilots fly more and are paid less. Experience and ability matter little as long as they get to Aspen/Van Nuys/Teterboro and didn’t die. I left corporate of my own free will and I have no anamosity towards my former employer. But I was replaced with somebody MUCH less experienced and MUCH cheaper. As long as no metal gets bent they will think they’re getting the deal of the century.

If I was a betting man I would guess most corporate jets are going to be just like the regional airlines...a feeder for the majors. You’ll still have the Fortune XXX companies as outliers that pay to retain talent as the smaller businesses either accept they are a stepping stone or call 1-800-NET-JETS

Re: Corporate
 

I had a Captain complain that he could not find a good SIC for a contract
gig and is only offering 250 dollars a day. Imagine that!

I really liked my 91 job. It was easy, the owners were great to work for, the schedule was great (flew about 100hrs last year), benefits were decent, and it didn’t look like they’d sell the plane anytime soon.
But when I looked at what is happening and still to come with the airlines, I thought “is making 70k on a G150 going to be what I want for my career?”. It wasn’t. I wish I could have stayed but I know that in terms of income, stability, retirement, benefits, career experience, and so on I will be miles ahead with the airlines.

And therein lies the problem—metal gets bent so infrequently that it’s hard to quantify the value of skill and experience. In the 80s, I was at EAL, all the old guys decried the trends attached to deregulation—less quality, less emphasis on skills and training, fewer ex-mil (opinion held by ex-military guys), girls and minorities in the cockpit, contract givebacks all was going to inevitably to bloodshed and soaring accidents.

Did. Not. Happen. Truth was, air carriers and corporates got safer and safer as technology improved and engineered out pilot error. CFIT and Mid-air collisions disappeared, which only made the true pilot errors like AF 447 and Colgan 3407 stand out.

Safety and pay are totally unrelated, so says the record. Do, your boss probably is getting the deal of the century.

All that said, airline pay has finally returned to its heydays of regulation. It will go up significantly as the investments in better, more efficient planes produces a larger revenue stream. Pilots are paid by revenue and that makes it harder to argue at corporate operators.

GF

You know this for a fact?

I just got offered 300K to stay at my corporate gig. I'm still seriously thinking about taking my class date at SWA. The pay cut will surely suck but I will never worry about my job again.