UAL alone has dropped around 20 small markets. If the legacy, LCC’s, and freight companies significantly reduce hiring, that would buy time more than anything. Fuel prices went way down during the pandemic also. Prior to the pandemic air travel was predicted to significantly grow. Our ATC system is pretty saturated and the only way to handle that growth is with larger aircraft. Considering that the regionals have all of the 70/76 seat aircraft that they are allowed, coupled with the age, unpopularity, and inefficiency of the 50 seaters, that growth will occur at the legacy level. Unless a viable 50 seat aircraft hits the market quickly, the regional fleets are going to significantly shrink over the next few years. Higher fuel prices will accelerate that. A full blown recession could slow everything down as well.

It’ll be interesting to see if the regional airlines will have enough foresight to continue hiring through the next downturn to prevent being so short staffed when hiring picks up again


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If you were debating between a career in this industry or an IT career, you future looks much brighter hanging with the Big Bang types.

This is all true. But the thing is no one really knows how things will play out post pandemic or how the Russia situation will end. Perfect storm, absolutely it’s going to be a case of music stopping and furloughs at the majors sooner than anyone would imagine.

But as the COVID situation has proven, the opposite can and will happen of what every “expert” prediction may be. Time shall tell, and it appears we don’t have long to wait to find out.

Where do you have evidence of that? I’ve heard of plenty of airports having gate space and operational limitations but never “ATC saturation” being a thing.

Poorly worded. I meant airport service volume and ATC at the terminal level. EWR for example is a zoo on a good day. Hub ATC can only handle so many blips per hour but the airspace in between still has some room. Adding flights isn’t an option at many hubs due to congestion, so the next option is to increase the size of the aircraft currently operating the routes.

ATC satiation mainly a northeast/SFO problem. That only way for growth To happen at these airports are larger aircraft.

We need to pay our teachers more.

Why reward poor performance?

Sorry for typos, spelling errors, and failed use of capital letters. Happens when I am just typing on the phone as I go. Lol