A LOT MORE!!!! ANA for example, hires individuals after high school and sends them to their training academy in California for all their ratings and their first 500 hours, all this while paying for their room and board, meals, medical insurance and their training pay is not that far off from their line F/O first year salary (not going to mention numbers, don't want to depress anybody during the holidays) but all things considered the expense per pilot is over 400K, but this are individuals that will spend their entire careers at a single airline.
There is another aspect to all of this, what will they be willing to spend and/or pay to an individual that is there just to reach a minimal magic number and then move on??? I foresee training bonds coming to a regional near you ;-)
If you can get anyone to sign them.
That's what I mean. The only reason guys signed training bonds back in the 90's was that the career was still worth getting into, stays at Regionals were short, the pay at the Majors topped $200k pretty quickly, movement to CA wasn't bad at the Legacies, about 10 years, the payoff was worth the risk at the time.
Now you have 20+ year upgrades at many carriers, they'll fall briefly to 10 years for pilots hired in the next 3-5 years, but then they'll start ratcheting up again, and you have an entire generation of people coming out of high school and college who KNOW what the Regionals pay and planned other career tracks.
I don't see that changing if the pay doesn't come up across the board, but especially at the Regionals. They'd have to recruit AT HIGH SCHOOLS, do what ANA does and PAY them a living stipend while simultaneously paying for their training through 1,500 hours (or less IF they can get a waiver), not just the 500 hours or so ANA does, all under a training bond. Do you think Domestic U.S. airlines would do that?
Then, not to mention, in this country, a pilot simply has to file bankruptcy to get out of their training bond per our current bankruptcy laws. Do you really think the airlines are going to put themselves in a position of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars PER pilot, knowing a guy could simply bankrupt on them, instead of just raising the wages $10-15k a year for the 3-5 years a guy will be with that Regional before upgrading?
I don't think so, but by the time the Regionals start doing this to poach the pilots from other Regionals and Pt 135 gigs, there will be a gap in between those new-hires and pilots starting out training from Private Pilot because the wages are livable.
It's going to be an interesting problem for them. Wish we were going to benefit from it but, unfortunately my friend, you and I are too old to see any up-side from it. Except, perhaps, to see Ex-pat compensation come up as the pool of U.S. aviators dries up for them to hire straight into the CA seat for widebody aircraft.
Praying for GROWTH at SWA! And, if not, hoping that the upcoming hiring cleans out the ranks of people who want to go overseas and really puts a crimp on the Regionals who have gotten away with slave labor wages for decades now. Would be nice to see this career become something great again!