The article didn’t mention the root cause of the pilot shortages.
IMHO the root cause is the downsiszing of the American Military. Like it or not for over 30 years the Department of Defense ran the world’s largest technical training school system. And to a large degree it still does today.
Where else can a recent high school graduate with no money learn technical skills like every job in the airline industry? Where else could the high school graduate learn the inter-personal skills required to be a good employee and lower to mid level manager?
The technical training costs thousands of dollars - the personnel skills cost even more - time.
Jump to college graduates and the same rules apply
Reduced number of military pilots means fewer future civilian pilots and higher training costs at every level.
For the smaller regional airlines it means higher training costs (dollars and time) than they can absorb. Thus the problem will continue and deepen.
I think you are dead on. There have been several trade articles that speak to that very point.