Let's get this straight... as much as RAA and Roger Cohen and the regional management types may gripe, THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF EXPERIENCED, QUALIFIED PILOTS! However, there is a developing shortage of qualified pilots willing to work for insulting wages.

It's Economics 101 - Supply/Demand. People with any sort of experience will not do it for poverty wages. Throw in the uncertainty of not flying under your own code and being handicapped by the date-of-hire seniority system.... they'd have to pay A LOT more to attract experienced pilots.

Regional airline managements are doing their job in trying to keep the costs as low as possible. Pilot mentality in the US of fostering the whole "paying your dues" bullsh*t is also not helping because in all the chest thumping and holier-than-thou attitude we display towards up and coming pilots by encouraging them to take sh*t jobs just to get to that magic next level, we are in fact cheapening ourselves and promoting the notion that pilots are cheap labor willing to do whatever it takes for that 1 hour of flight time.

What's the answer? They'll just have to pay up to attract people, or they'll have to go under.

To those who think that regionals cannot afford to pay those wages, perhaps they can explain to me how come we aren't back to stagecoach days with oil price spike over the past decade? How come we still have cars, let alone airlines operating?

The bottom line is, the airlines can evolve and pay more to attract pilots just as they've evolved from operating in $25/barrel oil to $125/barrel oil.