Actually, the shortage is very real for a number of reasons.
The first was due to the 1500 hour rule. It created a gap in available labor. Each year a number of pilots would reach 250 hours either through college or on their own. The regional airlines - which historically hired at around 2500-4000 hours to fly Beech 1900’s had been chipping away at wages, benefits and working conditions causing fewer and fewer pilots to enter as a profession. As the compensation lowered so did the entry requirements until they were essentially hiring ink wet brand new commercial pilots into fairly large transport category regional jets as their first job since flying Skyhawks and archers. This only lasted a few years... basically 2006-2011. Historically it had always taken considerably more hours before being hired to fly jets at a part 121 airline. An accident in 2009 drew national attention to how low the experience level had dropped to and legislation changed the requirements to obtain an ATP which now requires additional experience and more specialized training than it previously did. They also changed the 121 reg from requiring CMEL for a First Officer to requiring an ATP. What we all call the 1500 hour rule is more accurately described as the ATP rule since the ATP is what is required and it may be obtained at various total hours.
When the ATP rule went into effect it created a 4 year dry spell. We are now back to where we were before with a fresh supply of eligible pilots being produced each year.
That shortage - and the current one - were caused by the low wages, low benefits and poor working conditions keeping otherwise eligible pilots from taking those jobs. As wages, benefits and working conditions improved pilots returned to accept those jobs.
So where is the shortage now then?
From a legal standpoint with age 65, 41% of all active commercial pilots retire in the next 10 years. Over the past 3 decades there has been a 30% decline in licensed pilots according to the FAA. Boeing forecasts that there will be a need for 790,000 new pilots from now to 2037. That’s an average of 43,888 needed each year globally. The US major airline retirements over the next 10 years is over 30,000. That’s 3,000 a year.
Will the Delta, United, American, UPS, Fedex ever have a pilot shortage, no. But every other job under them will feel the pinch in various ways. To get those few legacy jobs you’ll still have to differentiate yourself from the thousands applying to get in. Hardest hit will be the regionals and smaller charter outfits. LCC will see significant pay, benefit and working condition improvements to keep their pilots from leaving to the legacy jobs. This will - and already is - making places like JetBlue, Spirit, Frontier, Allegiant, Kalitta & Omni very viable career alternatives. This trend will only continue. Last will be regionals. They will expand their preferential hiring and flow through programs with their mainline partners rather than increase wages and working conditions. Eventually they’ll be forced to, but that’s still a while away and with planes like the A220 much of the profitable longer regional flying routes will be pulled back in house to mainline to allow the regionals to shrink without cancellations.

There Ends my crystal ball.... for now

Some reference

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/co...commerce-world

 

I totally agree with you. I find it so ironic that we get our "thousands of hours of experience" striving to differentiate ourself with training dept, flight ops dept, union work, volunteer.. Flying their pax so we can one day be good enough to.... Wait for it.... Fly their pax!

Case in point, I was at WAI last spring and said hi to American, the gal looked at my resume with 2 masters degrees and 3.5+ gpas during all college/grad coursework, training dept, union & community volunteer work, 1400 121 tpic (a good portion of which was gained flying AA ticketed pax) and told me to look around at everyone else at the table area and find a way to differentiate myself lol.. Handed me my resume back and that was that. Being the snowflake that I am, I was demoralized and mildly humiliated.

What you're saying makes total sense

 

To your point --

Everyone looks at the retirement numbers at the majors and says "Wow, there are over 30k retirements over the next decade with just over 20k regional pilots, everyone will have a job."

But.

How many U/LCCs pilots have their apps in? How many corporate or former airline pilots are joining the regionals now to prime their resumes with current 121 time for the legacies? How many Air Force, Navy, and Marine jet pilots are leaving each year to take those jobs?

There certainly is opportunity - it isn't stagnant by any means. However, it's just as competitive as ever.
I think most everyone with a clean record and well-rounded app will be able to move beyond a regional if that's their goal, but you may have to settle along the way.

 

Of course they will come down.
Supply. Demand. Simple economics.

The question is just how much and how it will echo through the food chain. The majors can pretty much snap their fingers and get plenty of acceptable candidates. Think the bigger question is what happens if regionals/LCC can't staff themselves.

 

There is a shortage coming, but it’s not here yet. The big hiring spree and pay increases at the regionals were a result of the factors that rickair777 mentioned above. Give it a couple more years before things really start to pick up. It’s all a guess though as to how the majors decide to handle it i.e. flow, training programs, bringing routes in house etc.

 

There are a ton of retirements on the horizon, but the number of replacements isn’t a static list. There is a kid out there with a brand new drivers license who could be a competitive applicant at the legacies in 10 years. The business plan could alter demand for pilots as well. Increased passenger loads could lead to reduced frequency on larger planes, affecting the demand for crews. I don’t think that the sky is falling by any means, but there has never been a better time to be starting out than right now. Of course, compared to what we just came out of, everything looks good.

 

Which Legacy has captains costing 50% more than LCC Captains? I’m guessing Southwest and JetBlue are the two main LCC and they both pay 12 year captains ~$270/hr vs. The Legacies paying ~$285/hr for the same equipment.

Maybe 1,500 out of 15,000 at any given Legacy are WB Captains costing 30% more than LCC Captains but still not 50% more. The majority of Legacy captains cost about 5% more over LCC captains if we are just talking straight pay scales.

I’m not trying to be pedantic, just seemed like 50% was way too large of an over reach.

 

Exactly. It’s not as if no one else is going to become a pilot in the next decade and it’s a finite list of pilots to backfill the retirements. You make some other great points above too. Just a small example, the USAF is trying to up it’s pilot production from about a 1000 a year to 1500. In a decade, all those “extra” guys will start being at their ADP (airline decision point) too. If The industry remains stable and pay is good, people will invest time and $$$ to become pilots and there will be no “dire” shortage.

 

There are fewer people wanting to enter this profession and others that require a large personal and financial input before any chance of seeing a reward. There is a different culture now. I’m not going to call it entitlement, millennial, or anything like that, but there is a different mindset now. The industry will eventually be forced to adapt. Until that happens, life at the regionals is going to stink, and life at the legacies is going to be gravy. The concessions are over, it’s time to get paid and claw back what we gave up over the years.

 

As much as I'd like this to be true, classes at most the regionals are full and backlogged. It's financially justifiable nowadays to pursue it and I think there is enough desperation in the american system nowadays it drives people to take on huge risk, which the airline career is. Many of my coworkers are millennials. They are showing up in suffcient numbers but perhaps not as much as in prior generations. Still, filling the ranks is a drop in the bucket. I think 135 and the bottom barrel 121 are the only ones feeling the pinch. Will that change? Anyone's guess. The regional hiring mania of 2014-2018 has seemed to cool off.