In a Feb. 20 Business Journal article titled "How Miserly Airlines Created Their Own Pilot Shortage," columnist Joe Brancatelli makes the following observation:

"The nation's big airlines don't want you to know that their commuter carriers, which operate half of all the nation's commercial flights, often pay pilots so little that it's often financially wiser to drive a truck or flip burgers than to fly a plane. In case you missed the impossible-to-ignore, cut-to-the-chase conclusion, the pilot shortage is another nasty side effect of the airline's industry race to the bottom of everything from employee wages and benefits to passenger service and comfort. And the airlines bosses are shocked —shocked! — to find that potential aviators aren't flocking to an industry that offers minimum wages to new employees who've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to qualify for the job."