Good perspectives. Remember that back then, Eagle was flying 19-30 seat turboprops and represented a much smaller percentage of total departures for the mainline.

Back then Eagle was one of the higher paid regionals and you typically only had to work there for a few years before being picked up by a major. Back then you needed a lot more time to be considered for being hired...typically you needed multi and turbine and many Eagle pilots came from other commuter airlines.

Now you are paid less (on average adjusting for inflation) and can expect to spend half your career there before maybe getting in at a major. And you're flying large jets.

The only way to really break this cycle is to vote out the unions at all the regionals. Some regional pilots may lose some lousy jobs but all that flying will be picked up by someone. The problem is that you have all those regional pilots that are terrified to stand up to ALPA for fear of being blacklisted.

Yes it's a scam.