The aviation pilot industry is cyclical with long time constants. For a long time there were more pilots than jobs, so you'd do anything you could to build hours so you could get your ATP rating. The regionals and feeder lines were one way to do it, but pay was bad. And pay rates industry wide weren't that good, unlike the 1960s. So people didn't go into becoming a pilot and the military wasn't training as many pilots as it used to.

Then the demand for aviation grew until it was bigger than the number of pilots and suddenly the low wages/poor benefits thing started going away as the carriers put effort into retaining pilots. And Netjets looks like it hasn't kept up, so somebody can fly for Netjets, get more hours and then move on to someplace that pays better.

(And now that being a pilot is cool again, there will be a boom in the number of pilots, which will lead to a bust in the pay rates, but that is years off.)

Berkshire Hathaway FAQ

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