yeah if it was POSSIBLE lmao, they require an ATP unless you are EXTREMELY fortunate.

Worth noting that a lot of the LCC hiring is to replace those they lose out the revolving door to the legacies. So the total numbers needed in a given year are not quite the sum of all the majors' hiring.

Very true, but it isn’t necessary for the legacies and LCC/ULCCs to hire away all the pilots from the legacies to destroy the legacy model. If they merely hire away the junior CAs and the FOs with 750-1000 Hours of 121 time, the model collapses quite quickly.

Yes, the model is in danger of collapsing, at least the outsourced part.

Bringing them in house would solve the staffing problem... no shortage of pilots who will fly RJ's if they have a mainline number & benefits. They could seat lock 1500 hour wet ATP's into the RJ's, and let experienced turbine pilots hire directly into other fleets.

That would take some fancy CBA writing and even then they might cease to be competitive for OTS hires.

There’s a huge population of 1500 hr pilots on waiting lists. Just need a slight slow down in legacy hiring for it all to ripple down to solve the captain problem. Age 67 could do it. Ramping up recession could do it. Higher fuel prices could do it.

You need
1) loa for fences for the captains on the RJ
2) loa for seat lock to xxx turbine for new hires into rj
3) memo to HR to run separate indoc days for people you find worthy of non-rj seats.

So all your REAL OTS new hires lose seniority to all your regional guys? That ruins your competitiveness for OTS hires.

The "historical" seven-year recession cycle came due in 2014... they've been saying it's right around the corner, any day now for the last nine years :rolleyes:

The old paradigm is broken, I don't pretend to know what the new one is and I'm not saying recessions won't happen, but covid and the red army in a ground war in Europe haven't quite triggered one yet.

We already *got* higher fuel prices.

Also travel is thriving even as other consumer spending sectors slow down a bit. Looks like pent-up demand and new travel habits will get us through this cycke at least.

I have as much PTSD from industry cycles as the next Lost Gen, but rationally I think we might be OK on this one at least.

Age 67 might allow the system to stabilize long enough for the majors to do what they should have done 15 years ago... establish ab initio pipelines which they can control. I think there are plenty of folks who would love to be airline pilots if they can simply apply, show up, and attend training without worrying about tuition, loans, collateral, and top ramen.

This ^^^^. This industry has greatly underestimated, and continues to underestimate the need for programs like this. They have been behind the bell curve for years. Flying is cost prohibitive unless you have financing that you can easily apply for. But then when people see the bill they will be stuck with after taking out a massive loan, they balk and decide on other career options instead. Cost is a major factor in new student starts and completion all the way to CFI/CFII/MEI. The majors have been burying their heads in the sand for a long time on this and it’s starting to catch up.

Also, another thing I and myself have noticed over the years, is that kids don’t really have an interest in aviation as much as previous generations did. They would rather be pretend pilots on Microsoft flight sim and other gaming platforms and don’t value a pilot career as much.