Aloha,
Youīre not too young, especially in the US. If you can get hired in the next 4 years, you will still have a 30 year flying career. If you know the right people, and the timing and hiring are just right, you could end up at a major airline.
With that being said...
1. Will there be a hiring boom? We donīt really know, it depends on lots of factors. If everything goes as predicted, then possibly. If we enter a second recession, hit by a giant terrorist attack again, volcanic ash cloud, etc... it could affect world-wide travel, thus affecting the airline hiring. Itīs all a domino effect and nobody can really know exactly what will happen.
What I can tell you is that the regions in the US are hiring right now. If you want to catch this ship, you need to hurry because the hiring situation can just as easily reverse in a very short time. American Eagle is hiring with 500TT minimums if you go through All ATPs Regional Standards course, and American Eagle has a flowthrough deal with American Airlines (some changes are happening at AMR right now though)
2. Despite furloughed pilots and military pilots, currently, there are not enough pilots to fill the hiring classes at the regionals. Yes, US military pilots are planning on jumping to the commercial side soon, especially if the deployments and the extra queep doesnīt reduce, but I think this is a bigger concern for the military.
3. No, you are not too old to get started and potentially get hired at a major, but see first paragraph.
4. There exists a potential to make six figures as a captain at a regional. But starting pay will be somewhere between $17,000 to $22,000. If you go to a major, pay is better with a higher earning potential, if you get there. Southwest Airlines and Fedex seem to be at the higher end of the pay scale.
Airline Pilot Salary and Pay Rates
You can see what the payscales look like at different US Carriers. And when doing the calculations, pilots work around 65-80hrs per month (only get paid while plane is moving, not when you are parked and doing other things)
To be honest, you are not too old for the US. I know guys who didnīt start until their early 40s but their whole career ended up being at a regional. I also worked with a guy who had a full time job, and was slowly building up his hours. By the time he was 35 he had built up enough hours to get hired but didnīt want to go to a regional take a paycut from his current job that he had been doing for the previous 13 years.
I would say that in your position, and with the current regional hiring going on right now, you donīt have time to waste if it is something you really want to do.
Just my 2 cents.