Getting hired at the beginning of a boom with lots of numbers under you is the surest way to a secure job in this business. That assumes the company stays in business.
True statement, and as always, the key to a good flying career is timing and luck.
BTW It has has already started, the experience seen applying at the lower end of the chain is starting to thin out.
I don't attribute that to the beginning of the hiring boom, and that's a bad sign for the lower-end ad-hoc freight carriers, charter companies, etc.
We have NOT seen hiring pick up ANYWHERE yet, not in any real numbers to produce that thinning. Delta starts retiring large numbers next month but is going to wait until the end of next YEAR to hire so they can thin out their pilot numbers post-merger with NWA. AA hasn't hired, USAir is interviewing, CAL is talking about it, Hawaiian is taking a FEW, etc, etc. Hell, Comair just put a ton of experienced pilots on the street, certainly not a reason for the availability of good pilots at the lower levels to have thinned...
Where is the thinning coming from? Pretty simple: people are getting out of the aviation job market, or at least in the charter and ad-hoc segment of the industry. I've had 3 good friends, highly-experienced, do that very thing; they got tired of that kind of a lifestyle with no end in sight. One started his own insurance company, makes 3 times what he did as a pilot. One started his own photography company, makes what he did at a Major as a CA and is home almost every night, travels some too on HIS schedule of choice. One went overseas and is doing very well.
We almost always see the ad-hoc companies hurting towards the END of a hiring curve at the Majors; we don't usually see it before the hiring even STARTS. The YIP business model likely won't survive the changes coming down the pike; not without dramatically changing their business model in terms of cost, in order to pay for more employees to give more days off and higher pay. The good news? You'll ALL have to do that, which is good news both in terms of company viability (that freight still has to get moved, they'll just pass the cost onto the consumer at the end), and in terms of quality of career for you guys.
The Regionals will start stealing all the Charter and Ad-Hoc people when pilots see how fast the progression is going at the moment, which will then be the only places the sub-1500 hour pilots can go and earn those hours to fly for a 121 company which, again, is a very good thing. Maybe they'll learn some actual stick and rudder skills in hard IFR on non-automated (or nearly so) equipment before they come fly an airliner, which will make them a better pilot.
The whole thing sounds nice on paper - the industry correcting itself in terms of supply and demand. Just have to make sure the politicians don't f*** it up and throw a monkey wrench in the whole thing. Age 67 and a repeal of the 1500 hr minimum with some kind of MPL would do just that.
ALPA-PAC and CAPA-PAC, people...
