Is there a looming regional FO hiring push?
 

With the Legacy carriers, LCCs, etc… slowing or stopping hiring, the sucking chest wound of regional captain staffing will probably start to close up. I personally have three friends at the regionals who tried like heck to get out as first officers but were unsuccessful. They’ve all now shifted their focus to upgrading at their regional. I imagine they aren’t alone and we’ll see many regionals stabilize their captain staffing a bit which could in turn open up more demand for FOs again.

It’s also no secret that many regionals have had aircraft parked during this post covid hiring tsunami. While the big three have certainly tried to reduce their dependence on regional flying (a good thing overall), it’s still very important to feed traffic from small and medium markets to their hubs, so I imagine they’d love to get many of these parked aircraft back flying again.

With all this in mind, is it possible we’re going to see some more steady regional FO hiring return as current FOs upgrade and parked jets potentially come back online?

yes. Even probable. Question will be when and how much. ie how deep is the captain hole? Do they want to flip the labor pool so that the captains have an easy life (ie doing get a lot of TPIC) and the FO's fly their tails off so that they regenerate a deep pool of legal-to-upgrade FO's

The 737 heavy carriers pausing hiring is an interesting opportunity for Delta and American. If I were them, I would shift my hiring 100% to commutair and then move to Mesa once it folds.

If so, it would also seem plausible then that the upgrade times at said regionals would begin to steadily increase.

I know a couple of regional first officers that were waiting on class dates at Southwest, but will now upgrade to captain at a regional. Not only does thier spot as a first officer need to be replaced, but they will be able to support another first officer while flying as captain. I'm not expecting another mad rush, but hiring should pick up at regionals as the year moves forward.

Yep. The MAX certification and other Boeing problems may actually allow the big three to slow their flow and similar programs long enough to breathe new life into regionals once headed for extinction proving the old saying about it being an ill wind...etc.

Not that it won't be an ill wind for those who might have already gone to the big three if the airframes hadn't stopped coming off the assembly lines.

"Airframe"

From Merriam-Webster:



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Once Boeing fixes their problems, and production gears up with quality products, there will be a hiring frenzy at the majors, once again.

You and your predictions. Who’s gonna make it, who’s not. A year ago you were telling everyone the regionals are done.

You know, Dante pull the fortune tellers in the Eighth Circle of Hell for a reason. So watch your mouth.

Not really, all the airlines were looking at reductions in hiring. The 737 deliveries are being covered to a extent by delaying retirements. The massive hiring push was covid early retirement programs induced. Not happening this time. Hiring will resume at about half the covid rate. If the economy turns there might not be any near term rebound.