NY Times Article on The Pilot Shortage:
 

The selfishness amongst the parties involved is astounding. The regionals want 250 hours back so they can get pilots who still have their parents paying their bills and are used to the Ramen noodle lifestyle, the aviation colleges are selling the "sweet spot" of @800 hours so they can get cheap/free labor for their instructor corps while still being able to hold themselves out as a "shortcut" to a real airline gig, and some majors are trying to ensure that the costs of any training risks are passed on to the applicant.

With any luck, congress will stick to the Nixon method of denying any changes. For now, at least, it seems that lowering requirements is the third rail of federal aviation safety.

The faa is an organization that has been for years in the back pocket of airline management.

"American airlines has 100 apps on file for every one person they hire." I guess that headline isn't as sexy.

I'll just say that the shortage is not going to get any better as long as the big three are making record profits. There's less a need for us regional guys. Delta announced that they're going to continue reducing the amount of regional flying to bring it back in-house when they went public with the C-Series order. When the big three start loosing profits, they will cut cost, reduce RASM or whatever the heck capacity is, and beef up regionals again.

Yea but how many of those are actually hireable? And at what cost to the regional model that operates 50% of the daily departures of the big three?

When did Delta go public with a C series order? Love to see it but have yet to see a single comment from Delta that they are buying that airframe. They have stated they need 50 additional mainline airframes to cover a shift in RJ flying over the next 4 years.

This is such a joke. The C-series, which is still a rumor, will be MD88 replacements. It's not growth.

The FFD model is dying a slow, painful death. The "majors" are just trying to milk every last penny while it is in it's death throes. Addiction is a terrible thing.

This is so full of bull. The GAO did a survey in 2012 and it showed here are approximately 140,000 rated ATP's, and 105,000 commercial instrument rated pilots that could take the ATP Test. The FAA gave out approximately 6400 ATP certificates in 2012 and that number is trending up.
Including military pilots who are retiring that's about 250,000 pilots that are competing for 72,000 airline jobs.

There is not a pilot shortage. There is a surplus of pilots that don't want to be paid pennies to work at the regionals. BB at Republic blamed the 1500 hour rule when he should be looking to pay his pilots more. Regional first year F/O pay is trending up but is nowhere near where it should be right now.