At the risk of being the "turd in the punch bowl" how much of the current situation can be resolved with better pay under current regulations? It seems that this "shortage" has been over a decade in the making - it costs a lot of time and money to get to ATP mins and the payout sucks. Seems like reason enough to upset the supply/demand equilibrium. Not to say that if it suddenly became lucrative to be a regional pilot that there wouldn't be a considerable number of applicants in 2-4 years, but are there enough dormant ATP qualified pilots out there to supply the regionals as they currently exist and set the bar higher than fogging a mirror?