Or...
1. There is no pilot shortage at all. Pure urban myth.
2. Regionals hire half of those who come through the door, even though they meet all the mins, and throw capable and qualified people back on the trash pile after every single interview at a rate of about 50%.
3. They will park perfectly good airplanes even to the point of defaulting on flying contracts because they are not happy with higher training costs via using above 50% of those coming through the door even after being pre-qualified by HR screeners.
All I know is the lady at RAH said "you do not have a pilot's license" at my interview and then sent me home, so what am I supposed to think? What would you think? Poor interview skills o my part? No, I had ok-enough interview skills. I have many a successful interview behind me at age 40+, much harder ones than these regional airlines. Rather, the training costs were too high for training me or so they thought and they would rather park the airplanes than let me waste their time.