Althoug this isn't directly relevant to Wannabes, Virgin is currently recruiting about 70 new pilots a year. These pilots need to have a minimum of 3000 hours commercial or military jet experience. You wouldn't think that there are very many people out there who have that kind of experience, but we had (and are still receiving) thousands of applications. Now, I know Virgin is 'flavour of the month', but this is crazy!
Thing is, quite a few - though far from a majority - of these applicants are currently unemployed, so their success (should they achieve it) makes no difference to the people below them in the wannabe pile. Also, quite a few don't match the qualification requirements and so are rejected out of hand - but they're still looking!
Anecdotal evidence from other recruiting airlines suggests that applications for each new job are at historically high levels. In other words, there are still loads of you out there competing for each post. Inevitably, some - maybe many - will never succeed as their ability to fund currency flying while servicing their loans defeats them and they look to another field. My gut feeling is that there are quite a few of these...
There are no statistics, but I'd say that only the most determined (and the luckiest) will succeed.
Scroggs