I though daoldman was PDT guy.. Guess not.. I honestly don't see 50 seat flying going anywhere.. In This market I don't expect American to get scope relaxed to allow for more baby boeings, therefore it will be 50 seat rjs.

American has some tough choices to make in this next year and how they want to align there current business plan and fleet. They are very cautious with fleet growth and capacity control, but sooner or later with the struggles of last summer and this summer coming up, they are going to have to staff 100 seat aircraft to cover the regional lift. Therefore the e190e2 Mrj or c-series will have to purchased unless Boeing undercuts some more of their baby 737 like United grabbed up.

Personally I'm in good shape at PDT... I'm looking at flowing late 2018-2019... That's not bad and I'll be under 40 with my retirement job funding 25 years of 401k and ira. Unless I get United or delta prior.

Will there be an economic disaster? Sure.. Will PDT go out of business, unlikely in the near future, but I have a second job and I'm a hair away from earning my mba. Be prepared, be productive on your overnights..l. It is wasted time unless you use it.

Bump.

Any updates ?

SkyWest "humming" along
Envoy 100/mo
Endeavor turning people away apparently.

So pilot shortage or simply high turnover ?

We just ought to accept that the regional pipeline is still full. The majors have bought off the fake news media to report a pilot shortage so that suckers can dish $120k to become pilots and fill their cheap feed regionals. DON'T FALL FOR IT. IT'S FAKE

I think with the increase in compensation and improvements to quality of life that some regionals are offering it is drawing in a lot of pilots who once gave up on the industry, corporate/135 pilots, and military helo pilots through the associated programs. Some major flight school programs are for the first time talking about limiting the number of applicants they accept due to a shortage of flight instructors. The industry is starting to feel the squeeze. I think it may take another year or two for things to really play out and become clear.

I think this is the right line of thinking. These changes in the industry will not happen in a week. I would even give it more than a year or two. The numbers indicate the hiring wave will not be completely over until 9 to 10 years from now. So we still have several years to see what happens.

Not really. You pretty much nailed it.

They're scraping the bottom of the barrel for applicants at a lot of places. You also have a few regionals slowly imploding and the leading regionals scooping the good pilots up out of the liferafts.

There is some accumulator capacity remaining in the system right now...

-91/135 pilots who can't get a major call but didn't want to work for $20K at a regional.

-Former airline pilots who left the industry.

-Former mil pilots working non-aviation jobs.

-Senior active mil pilots who have completed any service obligations. Most of these are on the way out the door as we speak.

Once the willing 91/135/ex-121 pilots are hired, the the airlines will rely on the training pipeline only for regional pilots.

Once those lingering senior mil pilots are hired, the airlines will rely on the normal military career progression flow for military pilots.

That's looking to all happen in a couple years when the legacy hiring really starts to get going.

The airlines could totally alleviate a pilot shortage by establishing fully-funded ab-initio training programs (possibly with pay and seniority number from day one). But they'd better hurry, they cannot spool that up overnight. Also the second/third tier majors might struggle to compete regardless since a recent college grad would be looking at many years as a WB CA at the one of the big 3+2, vice topping out on a NB at other majors.

Can confirm SkyWest is still training at max capacity.

I agree with your assessment, chrisreedrules and Rickair7777.

My perception is a third to a half of those being hired today are in those categories.

When these pools of pilots dry up in a couple of years and the majors retirements kick into high gear, ‘Katy Bar the Door’. The majors will be hiring a fourth of the regional pilots every year.

There will be a big sucking sound in the regionals and the model of how regional flying is done will change to deal with the environment. (And that is good for pilots, overall.)