I spoke to an American Check Airman yesterday. I asked him about the age 65 rule and he said that while many were staying past 60, almost as many are now taking early retirement for fear of their own retirement accounts. Better to lock in the known amount as opposed to an unknown, and possibly lesser amount. American had 7 early retirements last month.

They are in a unique postion however.... their pensions are intact.... if there was even a hint of BK.... the old guys will bail like someone yelling fire in a theater.

Future
 

I agree with those who think that capacity will shrink. Re-regulation may help the majors but it will do nothing for pilots. As ticket prices climb customers will dry up. The industry will shrink by at least 40% over the next five years. Wages will continue to sink.

Skyhigh

Being that pilot pay scales would then be an instrument of profit it would help the pilots that are still around to see it.

Which doesn't include you and me; I think that was the point skyhigh was trying make with "it doesn't help pilots". There's not much value in giving my peer a raise by losing my job now is there?

As just about everyone else has stated, the commercial airline industry is going to downsize rather dramatically due to fuel costs. I would guess that just about half the airlines out there (domestic) will be gone within 5 yrs. or so.

Or SWA will be the only domestic? And 20 regionals feeding into the major airlines that only fly international.

Yes, obviously Southwest will be dominant. The decisions they made years ago set this in motion. You look at Delta, they have obviously positioned themselves to be a strong international player while shrinking domestic ops. This was a smart move since Luv doesn't go international, it was the best way to avoid the competition. We'll still have regionals, but the regionals will downsize quite dramatically as well. Not as many big fish to feed, ticket prices will be cost-prohibitive for many of the Americans flying today. We'll probably see more airlines from foreign countries coming into the U.S. as well.

Maybe not 5 yrs. away, but we'll probably see increased use of carbon-fiber fuselages across the board for all aircraft types and the development of single pilot flight-decks where applicable in order to cut costs. Heck, they've already gone from 4, to 3, to 2, 1 is the next logical step. The public will go for it because it will ensure cheaper tickets, which, of course, in the eyes of the consumer is always more important than safety.

I wish I had a crystal ball, it's going to be very interesting to see what the airlines do in order to adapt to fuel costs.

Hmmm, if I had to sit up there by myself for a 7 hour day or more, I'd go nuts. Tellin lies is half the fun.

It will be quite a long time before the public, feds, and unions accept a single seat airliner.