Nice post.

One thing I'd like to add, though, is I believe the regionals will continue to lower the bar with respect to experience levels of new hires, rather than increasing pay, until the rate of failures in training causes them to take notice. It's all dollar and cents. Training failures are expensive. Airline management doesn't care about Capts having to excessively "baby sit" low time F/O's. They don't care about what goes on in the cockpit as long as the airplane moves from point A to point B without crashing. What they do care about, though, is the bottom line.

When enough guys fail out of training, you'll see pay increase to attract a more well qualified applicant.

God help us if they just lower the standards in training. The line check airmen are really the last line of defense.