Some thoughts, some perhaps even with some validity.
One of the areas that I believe "we" (meaning us hourly wage worker bees of the flying business) are getting wrong is the idea of eliminating a segment of the industry rather than get it back to where it was.
Regional airlines didn't used to be considered a deadend job and viewed with disdain by their peers. Regional airlines used to be named North Central, Allegheny, Ozark, Southern,Frontier etc. These were career jobs that paid well, and any pilot employed by them was viewed with respect by his peers. At the time of deregulation they were flying 50 seat Convairs and F-27's and 80+ to 100+ seat DC-9's and maybe some BAC-111's. The commuters were flying B-99's and Metros and Nord 262's and Shorts 330's etc. (some navajos..even a twin beech or two). With deregulation the regionals decided to expand and become trunk airlines. Many commuters filled the void vacated by the regionals.
1. The DOT/FAA in the new era of being regulatory friendly to large corporations, (doing their bidding as opposed to protecting the public good), decides to allow an airline to be marketed as a different entity than what they were. Welcome "American Eagle".."United Express"... "Delta Connection"...whomever. This was a huge philosophical shift from mere code sharing. While not part of the airline deregulation act, it was part and parcel of the tetonic revolution that was just starting in the United States and quickly spread to other industrialized democracies.Every working person has felt the profound effects of this seachange in how workers are viewed..(even by fellow workers).. and compensated.
What do we have now: the Commuters are now the Regionals. The markets served by the Commuters often just lost service.
The Commuters, doing the work of the former regionals(and assuming their moniker)pay less when adjusted for inflation that the commuters of old.
Our problem isn't that there are regionals. Our problem is that they don't begin to pay, or command the respect, that a regional airline of pre deregulation did.
Rather than trying to fit a saddle upon a cow (in the manner of having the majors add even more aircraft types/complexities/etc to their certificates), perhaps our efforts should be in making the present day regionals the quality workplace that a regional once was.