Just want to add something here. Senior pilots don't "need" 20 days off. Compound that with shrinking the regional feed, pilot shortage fixed by better utilization for 2-3 years. Just a thought...

Thanks to 117, I don't think it's possible to get 20 days off even if they "need" them.

You mean in 17 years? There are 34,000 age 65 retirements between now and 2031. These are staggering numbers. Last year had a mere 805 and the wheels are already falling off. This show is just getting started.

High discouragement from the industry+ATP rule+droves of retirements.

I don't see regional airlines around in 5 years, certainly not 10 years.

Just curios, where did you get this 34,000 number from? I saw this list someone posted in November 2010:

2009- 6
2010- 13
2011- 15
2012- 299
2013- 695
2014- 892
2015- 939
2016- 964
2017- 1110
2018- 1258
2019- 1449
2020- 1653
2021- 1957
2022- 2016
2023- 2108
2024- 2047
2025- 2081
2026- 2011
2027- 1780
2028- 1767
2029- 1654
2030- 1240
2031- 975

With Comair and other regionals gone, and the mergers at the majors, this list is outdated. I'd imagine there are plenty of existing pilots to fill the vacancies. The majors forums are lit up with hiring discussions, but even so, folks are still not being picked up like hot cakes.

I have a feeling the regionals will be gone in 5 years as well for the lack of fresh blood.

What will the airlines do when they can't fly the people who want to fly, due to lack of pilots?

I, and other guys at my airline that fly a lot, are already having some problems. So far this year, I have had 4 trips I wanted to fly on Delta that I could not, because there were not enough seats on Delta for the itinerary that I needed to fly. I have had several long delays due to lack of crews....and none of that had anything to do with the weather...

Here's the numbers I saw posted a while back for Alaska, American, Delta, Fedex, United, UPS and US Airways combined. They had a link to a .PDF. It would be nice to have these verified.


2013- 805
2014- 1027
2015- 1105
2016- 1251
2017- 1523
2018- 1725
2019- 1930
2020- 2135
2021- 2490
2022- 2518
2023- 2612
2024- 2543
2025- 2506
2026- 2203
2027- 1915
2028- 1869
2029- 1551
2030- 1391
2031- 1644
__________
34,743

Sr. Barco, thanks for the updated numbers.

Anyone know how many pilots there are in the regionals today?

Also, I'm speculating that these numbers are based on current fleet. I'd think the airlines would be ordering bigger airplanes to reduce the number of required pilots.

This is about 2 years old but good ballpark info:

Air Wisconsin 710
American Eagle 3,000
ASA 1,739
Cape Air 229
Colgan Air 616
Commair 1,069
ComutAir 178
Compass 413
ERA 62
Express Jet 2,655
Go Jet 250
Great Lakes 282
Gulfstream 260
Horizon 620
Island Air 64
Lynx 119
Mesa 1,273
Mesaba 1,142
PenAir 120
Piedmont 430
Pinnacle 1,310
PSA 500
Republic 2,019
Skywest 3,100
Trans States 298
-----------------------------
TOTAL 22,458

Good to know!

Is there a chart for retirement for other companies such as JetBlue or southwest . In addition, what about regional. They seem to have some experience pilots that may need to retire in the next10 year. Maybe not at the rate of the legacies, but will surely make a difference !

Sr. Barco

Colgan Air 616
Commair 1,069
-----------------------------
TOTAL 1,685

These pilots are going to delay this pilot shortage a bit, maybe.