Originally Posted by
Oasis
Salaries don't go up immediately when there is a shortage.
First everybody starts hiring
Second, the hiring requirements are lowered. -seen that across the board
Third they will start to sponsor foreigners -virgin is doing that now
Fourth they will start to improve conditions.
This process ensures lowest cost per new employee, they don't start throwing money at it unless they absolutely have to.
There is a lot of movement between airlines at the moment, low cost to legacy etc. Once low cost can not crew, they will up the salary, then legacy has to follow.
The problem is indeed, that Europe is in a downturn already for many years, even at legacy carriers. To a certain extent this didn't hurt, since inflation was low or zero, while now still averaging 6% in Europe, with core inflation figures (w/o energy etc) even higher. In contrary to that airlines even deteriorated their T&Cs further and further, gaining momentum during the pandemic and in a total summary even LH-guys are "behind schedule", concerning their purchasing power, not talking about most non-legacy carriers.
Of course T&Cs now improve, but still there are enough qualified pilots, rushing in from anywhere, as Europe is a open labour market, compared to UK and US. And as long the mentioned salaries i.e. of Condor are attracting people from somewhere, being a huge improvement for them (unless they start calculating deduction for social welfare and taxes, as well taking into account living costs in Germany - a tiny appartment in the big and affluent cities costs 2000€/month, and the 6000€ mentioned above will result in 1500€ left after all deducted), there will be no "shortage".
The myth of "pilot shortage" has always been maintained by flight academies, even in worst times, in order to attract new students willing to pay. Most of them however never managed to get into one of the bigger airlines, heaving been left behind disappointed.