Talk about an oversimplification of an entire generation of americans. I don't understand the "well back when it was hard" mantra. Every single one of us should strive to make it less hard for everyone who follows us. Things don't always need to be "hard" to build one's character or prove one's worth.

No no, that is not what I am saying. They are smarter than we are. They are in school and see what is happening in the world and have decided that to give themselves the best chance at a good life, they will do whatever career gets them the most money fast. None of this "pay for your job crap" that was around in the past or "no pay in training". They will simply not put up with it. Bravo to them. If an industry does not pay, they won't go into it. Again, they are smart.

Too easy is equally as bad, people will develop entitlement attitudes. Personally, I want a steep learning curve, and I always want there to be a demand for pilots, for selfish reasons. The day that pilots aren't in demand... Heck, you all know what thats like!

Okay. I'm so used to people being angry at the millennials that I confused what you were saying with absent minded whining. That's my fault.

No worries. I get where you are coming from and I agree with you.

True. But it's better for the mainline to have a mainline pilot fly a -175 on a specific route, than to have no one available to crew any aircraft for that same route.

The Pilot Shortage has just begun...with no one for the regional to recruit from, the only choice for the mainline is to fly using a mainline pilot, or to recruit someone into the training pipeline who will end up flying for mainline down the road.

A better idea might be for mainline management (at keast at AAG) to bring in one or more of their wholly-owned regionals to fly these aircraft at modified group I rates as F/O's which would effectively double their regional F/O ranks. That way, present WO regional pilots could fly them (and likely for awhile). If present AA pilots were assigned to fly them too (as Captains), an agreement could be reached to do it for Group I rates for mainline pilots. They're AAG's planes and if the regional pilots were then stapled to the mainline list (immediate flow for all), it might be a workable solution.

Ok admittedly I took micro and macro about 17 years ago. I barely passed grad school intermediate micro. So give me some slack.

To me it seems logical that the legacies would bring flying in-house eventually. They pay regionals (like Republic) a guaranteed margin to operate a segment. They adjust those payments each year based on API or CPI depending on the CPA. They also pay for fuel. At some point they need to worry about the continuity of their business model/product if they actually value delivering a product that differentiates themselves from their competitors. I doubt there is much room for consolidation left among the legacies or LCCs although some may happen at the ULCC/LCC level.

So why not bring the flying in house? If you care about your product, don't want to deal with consistently ****ed off customers, and view regional staffing as a threat to your hub-spoke business? At some point it has to be cheaper to do the work with pilots on your own list than pay someone more than it costs to operate a segment, absorb the reliability hit, lose the product continuity and eventually exacerbate it by hiring the pilot from the regional.

I'm curious, other than the obvious cut 7-10 years off the seniority at a legacy, what is the incentive? Surely a legacy can secure better financing rates for a/c than a regional with questionable income streams and constant labor unrest.

This comment has nothing to do with X legacy acquiring y regional, I'm ignoring that rumor mill because I really don't understand THIS aspect of the thinking.

There are two "truths" in this article: There is a "shortage" of pilots (willing to work for crap wages) and there are no straight out replacements for timed-out 50 jets because none are being produced. Aircraft will have to get bigger because they have to. However, you're telling me most of Middle America will either lose service altogether or it'll just be done by mainline? This line of thinking assumes that there will be no other change in economics or behavioral factors on the part of the passenger/consumer. Will Mr. Jones decide not to take his family to Hawaii because he doesn't want to drive 4 hours to the nearest airport? What if oil prices spike back up? What if there's another housing bubble pop? (Wait, not what if, when) What happens when load demand decreases again and you're depending evermore on business travellers, and you can't fill a 737-800 twice a day MSP-BIS but your competitor is still running small planes with more frequency? Or the billion dollar quarters evaporate and your legacy decides it can no longer afford to subsidize $150 an hour for a 175 Captain?

Also, when pay goes up, macro economics teaches us that more people will chose the career field, thus increasing the supply towards the demand curve. All the lofty predictions of retirements outstripping current pilot numbers assume those numbers remain stagnant.

You know what's hard about predicting the course of this industry? Everything.

It's all cost related, the WO's will become more common because the CPA cost will go up because there are fewer companies bidding and they can take advantage of that faster than a pilot group. Compass was the only E-jet operator that wasent already growing and therefore could actually staff the planes. As more contracts come up the bids will be higher shifting the flying to WO carriers.
If a regional can make 15% return with better CPA's the mainline partner as might as well own them because that's their margins.
Same reason Delta bought Comair, at that time there weren't enough operators for jets as fast as they wanted them in service. So regionals were turning higher margins, then more operators entered and drove them down. Finally the pendulum is swinging back.