Right on. For the life of me, I can't seem to understand why people still haven't grasped the concept that regional airlines are a nifty scam/racket created by mainline airlines back in the day for the sole purpose of lowering labor costs, which were the number one cost item for airlines before oil prices skyrocketed. The scam was purposely designed to take advantage of low time pilots and cabin crew who were lured into accepting crappy wages and an even crappier QOL with the understanding that they needed to make that sacrifice in order to move on to better remuneration & equipment once they did their time and "paid their dues".

As much as I despise the 750-1500 hr ATP rule that our honorable members of the circus called Congress enacted into law as it didn't really emphasize quality training as opposed to a random number of hours, I have to admit that it is finally starting to raise wages and rest periods, which was the other issue needed to be addressed following the Colgan crash.

The scam is up and I'm sure that regional airlines will eventually go away as they will be unable to recruit newbies who are willing to accept the horrendous ROI for their incurred training costs. Regional airlines may try to delay their demise by coming up with cadet schemes subsidized by their mainline partners, but in the end even that won't be enough to lure potential recruits. Mainlines might as well give it up now and accept the fact that they will have to start ponying up some of their record profits into assuring a steady pipeline of trained recruits and decent wages, just like successful airlines everywhere else around the world already do.