So, we hear about pilot shortages...what is the actual number of pilots looking for jobs at a major vs. number of open billets to be filled?

Has anyone ever heard an actual number, as in considered current, qualified and competitive for the process? The last real number I've heard was from a source at Alaska, who I would deem had access to the information, that the number had ranged from 1500 4 years ago to 1000 or so, two years ago.

Obviously, since the qualifications by airline vary, the qualifications that make you most competitive vary so much, not every applicant applies for every position, etc., the equation would have lots slop baked into the pie from the start.

So, any estimates ranging from the known number of applications on file to a semi-educated guess?

If there were more major jobs than applicants the regional airlines wouldn't exist. There may be a lowering supply of cheap labor that the airlines became addicted to in the lost decade and half.

That's not a number you can really pin down because there are too many moving variables.

Airlines have differing manning strategies that change often, and there are differing strategies for as many different airlines are out there. Since the number of pilots working at a particular airline isn't a fixed number, it is impossible to really positively identify how many particular "open billets" there are on any given day.

So, no, there's not really an understood hard number or ratio outside of the numbers the individual airlines occasionally publicly state they intend to hire this year, and the approximate number of applications the airlines occasionally release that they have on file.

Currently SWA has 2,400 qualified applicants on file. Qualified meaning those with 1,000 hours TPIC. It's my understanding that they used to have about 6,000 qualified applicants on file at any given time. Given the fact they intend to hire 780 pilots in 2017 and 1,000 in 2018 that 2,400 number is going to be reduced rapidly, especially when you consider those same 2,400 pilots are probably on file with AA, UAL, DAL, UPS and FedEx. I posted this in another thread but I heard from a reliable source that the 1,000 TPIC requirement will be officially changed to 1,000 TPIC preferred soon.

When you consider at SWA they have dropped the 737 type rating requirement and soon they will drop the 1,000 TPIC requirement I believe it indicates a pilot shortage is forming up. Does anyone have any data from their respective company in this regard?

What I suspect will happen:

As the 'shortage' ramps up, so does the price of oil. Airlines park 50 seat RJ's en mass, displacing thousands of pilots into the whipsaw labor market.

Shortage averted.

Why do you predict oil will go up? The number of pilots in the world is in no way directly linked to the price of oil. So if you're suggesting somehow oil prices will be manipulated to avert a pilot shortage, I think that's laughable.

Everything points to low oil for years to come. It's also in our best interests as a profession and industry that they stay low if only for the fact that it is killing the ME3 and their plans for world domination. If their kingdom's can't pay their bills then they will have to shrink.

Yet on this very forum you read posts from folks with all the numbers hearing crickets.

Correct. The shadow inventory of ATP-holder/ATP-qualifying who refuse to work at a regional is grossly understated.

If the regional ranks could afford the pay increases required to activate that shadow inventory, there would be no headlines. It certainly does not absolve mainline from the important hand they play in the odious dynamics of that compensation shortage. Pay your subservient carriers more, or bring your feed in-house and deal with the overhead that way.