“And the reasons for that are, frankly, fairly simple. One is associated with demand – a lot of regional aircraft are parked, and those parked aircraft don’t need pilots. So, we have to adjust our demand forecast to compensate for the fact that fewer pilots are needed to fly a schedule.”

🤦‍♂️

Someone doesn’t know what supply and demand mean. That the planes are parked for lack of pilots doesn’t magically mean that the demand has ceased to exist

Hmmm...How's the pilot training going lately?

My paraphrase of the situation and response to the management type.

Pilots have been treated so badly historically that given the opportunity to move on to a chance at better things we will.

Clearly pilots don't view PSA as a career. Smart move pilots! I don’t feel any pity for any of the management types or management pilots who wont get their bonus.

The fact that the airlines have created the deep desire to move up asap, is not our fault.

The big question is when the music stops and this so called shortage turns back into a surplus, where are each of us stuck? At mainline, possibly furloughed for a long time? At a regional stuck in current wages at best for another decade?

Let me ask you this, if the pilot shortage is real how come there are a huge amounts of ATP ready pilots not getting calls or TBNT letters from the Regionals (including PSA) or given class dates 6 months out that continuously slide to the right?

Because there's also a shortage at the regionals of qualified CA's to fly with, and CA-qualified instructors to train new hires (and new CA's).

Plenty of mainline FOs who would be happy to be loaned to regional partners for those tasks provided they keep their seniority and other benefits.

Solutions to this self-inflicted wound exist but it appears that can-kicking until the next downturn (combined with constant whining to Congress and the Press) remains the default strategy.

I realize that and the point I was trying to draw out. It is not really a pilot shortage but a shortage of enough pilots willing to work as a CA at a regional level for a significant period of time when they are more than qualified to move onto their forever job.

I think the solutions are longer term down the road. That is to minimize this type of risk to mainline in the future, i.e. being too dependent on 3rd party outsourced regional lift. The regional business model has been shown to be too fragile to reliably depend upon in it's previous state, pre pay-increases. And these pay-rates aren't sticking around for ever....it goes against the core purpose of the regional business model in the first place.

Yep. And unless you are already in your 60s, you do not want to be a CA at a regional when the music stops…