A couple of reasonable questions that a young person considering entering the industry would be, how much is it going to cost? What is the likely payoff?
Todays answers, $100,000++ entry cost, and the current acheivable industry "pinnacle" would be a j*/
vb command paying $130,000+ after 8 to 10 years. qf have not employed for quite some time, and nobody knows what deal will be offered, however, I don't think many are under the illusion that they will be able to eventually achieve a current 744 Capt T&C's. This may change in the future, but it is not the expectation today.
Only when the expected risk/reward equation changes will more potential pilots be willing to take the risks.
The bottom line is that the "headline" rate for what is achievable
TODAY will need to increase significantly or the entry cost will need to be significantly reduced to convince the required numbers to consider the risk of undertaking training. Either way it is going to cost the airlines big time.
While ever the equation is stacked this way I believe the industry will fail to produce replacement numbers, let alone allow for expansion.
"Just for the love of it" doesn't cut it when they see the senior exec's walking away with potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.
The "market" rarely spontaneously produces long term solutions to long term problems.