Thank you!
 

Thank you for all of the opinions and taking time to respond to my post. Here are some retirement numbers I was playing around with in excel for the big 3, since they have the most retirements coming soon - if there are roughly 14000 regional pilots (and I realize majors hire from military/135/etc as well) I wonder where airlines will hire after about 10 years? I stopped adding all the retirements in my sheet as the numbers get high enough to say "Yes at this point anybody who wants to fly for the big 3 will have that chance."

year aa united delta total by year total cumulative
2016 135 371 225 731 731
2017 190 431 286 907 1638
2018 300 413 415 1128 2766
2019 418 424 513 1355 4121
2020 535 427 602 1564 5685
2021 580 509 789 1878 7563
2022 647 470 851 1968 9531
2023 704 552 809 2065 11596
2024 717 491 805 2013 13609
2025 713 600 713 2026 15635
2026 705 652 610 1967
2027 595 632 514 1741
2028 512 736
2029 474 675
2030 414 653
2031 434 649
2032 385
2033 368

One thing these charts do not take into account is what the numbers will be after the FFD contract pilots move over to mainline, when do they retire? For example, a bunch of these pilots are say 50 years old and accept employment with a major, they now need to be calculated into the 2030 retirement number which is not reflected yet.

When you look at it from that point of view, the numbers are far higher.

Nice calculation. This also doesn't take into account the inevitable transition of regional flying back to the majors.

Beyond thinking about upgrades, retirements, or even the pay, think about what it will do to your life. Do you currently live near a hub where you could get based by the regional that's based out of there? Or are you planning on commuting or moving? You'll probably get tired quickly of commuting from the west coast to the east coast for a job that requires you to be there a minimum of 4-5 days a week. What about after your regional time if you get hired at a Legacy and based on the other side of the country?

I also wouldn't plan on a 3 on 4 off schedule. More typical is 4 on 3 off. And it could be worse. Add commuting to that at it means you'll be lucky to have two or so days a week at home.

Living in domicile the schedules can be great. I slept at home nearly every day last year. Used my overnight bag probably for less than 10 nights and I'm not very senior in domicile. Compared to my time in the military, behind a cubicle, or the other management positions I had before flying, this job head is incredibly better.

If you want to fly, do it. If your only reason for change is you think you'll be making $150K in 5 years you'll probably be pretty unhappy. You may never make that kind of money. Not everyone will get to a Legacy.

Also doesn't factor early retirement by choice, or forced to retire by death, injury/ loss of medical.

It'll be hard to get a clear idea of how much of this will happen, but BLS.gov puts job growth in the airline pilot sector at about 1% which means growth just barely exceeds job consolidation from reclaimed regional flying. So seems to me barring major calamity, you can probably take those retirement numbers each year + 1% of total pilot jobs and that should ballpark job availability per year (unless we are in a recession).

Used to be. Not any more. Most line holders are getting worked to the max amount of days possible and no end in sight. Lifers are trying to get out now and sick calls have become the only way to get time needed off, which is why they have now have the CPs emailing about sick calls.

Not to mention people who are on LOAs, medical leave, FMLA, etc.

1. This job is unfair to a family and kids. I would feel horrible if I had kids and don't know how people justify it. You will miss out on virtually everything for all the many years you are a Junior regional FO, a Junior regional CA, then all over again for years as a junior pilot at a larger carrier. Birthdays, Holidays, Family events, important kids activities, weekend activities with friends, you will be gone in a hotel. Get use to things like all your family visiting your house on Christmas or Thanksgiving and you are stuck in a crappy hotel in middle of nowherville Kansas. Or all your friends getting together for a fun event or BBQ on the weekend but you can't go.. Over time they just stop asking because you are never there. This job has destroyed countless relationships. Some people make it work, MANY don't last. I see it constantly over the years. It's sad.

2. 3 on 4 off schedule isn't realistic and isn't happening for a long time.. then it will go away again as you progress upwards and are junior again in a different seat.. this cycle will continue many times as you move up in this career. The further you get up the ladder, the longer those years you will wait are.. Regional FO seniority moves fairly quickly, as there is a lot of turnover and movement, regional CA is a lot slower, and so on.. The trend with staffing getting worse and worse is having us work MORE days, not less.. unfortunately. This is only going to get worse with looming retirements. Plan 4-6 days on, 2-3 off. Commuting and reserve will make it even less.

3. Honestly.. I think this job is boring and I would trade it for an office job to be home every day and not waste my life away in airports and hotels. Some people are die hard and just love it, you fly with those people every now and then, they are the one's who read aviation magazines, play flight sim in the hotel, build RC planes, take picture of planes at the airport still.. most of us aren't that way, at least not anymore. Most of us just show up, try to get the shortest trip possible and just think about getting home ASAP. Doing this everyday sucks all the fun out of it in a hurry, trust me. You don't even really fly anymore at this level to be honest. Autopilot is on 98% of the time, and you punch buttons on the FMS or flight guidance panel when ATC tells you to do something. That's it. Every now and then you see something cool, or get to do something interesting or fun like flying low around NYC or DC to do their visual approaches.. but for the most part it's very dull and incredibly boring IMO, and there is a lot of crap and BS to deal with on the ground. As a captain you are responsible for everything and you get blamed for everything too if anything ever goes wrong. Flying is the easy part, being on the ground and dealing with all that is the crappy stressful part. Coordinating everything, paperwork nightmares, getting everyone else to simply do their jobs is a never ending challenge.. which most of this you DON'T EVEN GET PAID FOR. Since 90% of this BS is always happening with the main door open, you aren't even on the clock getting paid. Delays too, hours and hours you sit there losing out on time off, for free. Then really hope you don't miss your last commute flight home that day because of it, (happens all the time).. that will cost you a precious day off, unpaid.

The hard part about leaving this career after so much time and money invested into it is replacing the legacy level income with another regular job.. I think that is one of the only reasons a lot of people don't leave from everyone I know. Which as a new person starting out, it will take you a long time living at terrible wages to get too anyway, if you ever get there. I'm over a decade invested in regionals and still stuck here, and not for lack of trying. Thousands and thousands are in the exact same position. Things change rapidly and are very cyclical in this industry and you never know what will happen. Age 65, oil prices and 9/11 wrecked this industry in a heartbeat for many of us at the regionals currently. All of us here at the time paid the price getting stuck at horrible low wages as a regional FO forever, furloughed, or had to start over at the bottom multiple times. Then there is the constant shifting around of regional flying and people undercutting one another and stepping on each other to try to get ahead at your expense. One day your regional will be "the" place to be, the next day the bottom feeders of the industry with the worst contract is taking all your flying, and you move backwards, then that cycle continues on and on.. Is it worth it just to do this? I would say definitely not. Things are trending in a positive direction right now but could go in the toilet in a second with one big terrorist attack, oil spike or any number of things. No way in hell I would start over in this industry again if I had a good job with plenty of family time. Fly for fun if you enjoy it. Not because you have too.

It's funny, for every person that wants to do this, there is a person sitting in a hotel that wishes they just had a normal well paying 9-5 again. BTW I am typing this from a Hotel, wishing I was home having fun with friends and family on a Saturday night.. Instead I will be getting up at 0345 AM for a 16 hour day tomorrow with a 2.5 hour commute. Think about that..

4. Live in base if at all possible. It is a drastic difference in quality of life and basically mandatory if you care about your family time, stress levels and sanity. Commuting is a nightmare, it's extremely stressful and wastes an enormous amount of your life. Last week every flight I showed up at to get home on had 4-5 other jumpseaters each flight and was overbooked. You are tired, you just want to get home after a 10-12 hour day, but you can't just go home like a normal person. It's wait 2 hours for the next flight, try again.. same thing, more jumpseaters, full flight, try again in another 3 hours, on and on.. finally I took a high risk of getting stranded 2 leg 5.5 hour commute through another hub city to get home at 2am after 21 hours that day. This is not uncommon. It happens all the time. Commuting SUCKS and takes years off your life. Saying that about living in base, I HAVE moved to base 3 times to end this nightmare, and had my base closed on me and moved each time. This regional industry is HIGHLY unstable if you haven't grasped that yet. The Majors aren't much better. Bases close or shift around even at the Legacy level. So.. hope you don't like making long term living arangement plans.. this job will likely ruin them. FYI.

It's easy to dismiss all this stuff as a newbie looking in and just see fun, excitement and Delta, UAL, AA pay rates. Everyone does. I did too. Then you live it for 5-10+ years and that all goes away when reality sets in somewhere between your $800 paychecks, lack of sleep, crap hotel in podunk Indiana, and waiting around all day staring out the windows of an airport on 4th of July weekend wishing you could just go home and have a good time with your friends and family like everyone else does.

This^^^^ you summed it up perfectly