To get this back on track, I will wager that Great Lakes and Silver are beginning the inevitable role of the law of unintended consequences to the new post-Colgan rules requiring airline captains to log 1,000 hours of SIC time before upgrading.

It's one of the few sections in that law that actually makes sense, yet the ramifications are huge. If they need to upgrade people, and can't, then they can't staff.

The EAS program will (hopefully) begin a necessary slide to oblivion as a result.