Airline management is ALL about capacity management. Fleets will expand to absorb the capacity of the market but no more than that. Unless there is a new untapped market, or there is sudden customer interest in a market for some reason, there is little need for airlines to add sudden increases to their capacity on most of the routes they fly.
If your fleet is getting on, (10-15 years is old in airliner fleet terms), then you need to start replacing those aircraft.
If you are not seeing growth in your markets/routes then why would you add capacity to them? On the other hand if you are seeing growth then you will only add capacity to match that growth and not a seat more. Flying partially empty aircraft is unprofitable as has been demonstrated in the US domestic market for years.
My prediction is that there will be very few "new" hires coming from the expected delivery of the 30,000 planes mentioned in the article. Most of the "new" aircraft will be replacing older aircraft that will either be sold on to replace aging freighters or end up in the Arizona desert parking lots waiting for either a buy or the junk man.
Oh and guess what? Newer aircraft require less maintenance than older ones so in the short term if an airline quickly replaces its aging fleet (say within 3-5 years) then they actually have an opportunity in that time to reduce maintenance staff, until that fleet ages to a point where more frequent maintenance is required.
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