Anything's possible, but the Colgan families have a strong lobby that's wired in pretty tight to Congress and any politician that reverses course on that will be easy pickings in their next election as selling the safety of the American traveling public out for the $$$ interests of big business. In reality, the 1500 hour rule is a minor issue in the present state of affairs in the regional industry, but is being portrayed as much more by the ATA for big business. If they whacked that tomorrow, it might provide short-term relief, but wont change the core fundimentals of the problem.

The real problem is the huge $$$ invested and the poor ROI for aspiring pilots and as we all know the atrocious treatment of regional pilots by their managements is no myth. Considering the more lucrative opportunities out there for college grads that pay 2-4 times that of entry-level regional pilots for a fraction of the investment, the golden cow of plentiful entry-level pilots has been milked till its utter has turned blue and has flopped over, dead as dog****.

The only people to blame are the cow milkers who thought the cow would produce and live on in perpituity. Even if they doubled pay tomorrow and promised the world to those who would accept an entry-level regional pilots position, it would take years to restock the supply. In essence, these wizards have ****ed themselves and what a sad situation indeed. Isn't it interesting that they truly haven't come to terms with that yet, nor have made any serious efforts to correct that, instead opting for feeble promises and temporary band-aids ?

Of course, the senior executives are all millionaires and most have more money then they'll ever spend, so it's no big deal how badly they fail. Wall street rewards heinous faliures and this business is no different.