12. Ab Initio. Very little detail so far but this, along with more large RJ's, breaths new life into outsourcing at the "regional" level.

It helps management produce more pilots in a short period of time and has been shown to produce pilots that are not safe. They lack experience that traditional vetting provides. It's bad for the profession in multiple ways.

Delta and other regional are throwing $80K additional money over 3 or 4 year to regional guys willing to stick around just so they can keep the RJ experiment/ whipsaw alive. I imagine they will lobby (with ALPA's help) to reduce required flight time and pay pilot candidates to go through pilot puppy academies to fill seats under contract. Why ALPA would join in this affair is anybodies guess. Oh yeah, Richard asked. Kill it now before it grows.

One of the side effects of pilots trained this way...



"The pilot found visual approaches difficult."