In my experience changing planes and changing airlines is not that difficult as long as you put in the time to read the manuals and study hard during training. I went from being an ATR Captain at one airline to a 737 FO (my first jet) at another to a direct entry Captain at yet another airline. It was a little intimidating having my first flight in the aircraft in the left seat out of DCA departing from runway 01, but I did it and was signed off right at the minimum 25 hr required.

I would normally not support DEC hiring but the airline I'm currently working for grew so quickly that they needed Captains and didn't have FO's that wanted to upgrade or that were qualified. Recently there have been rumors, most likely unfounded, that they may hire DEC's again, this time because they need Captains but don't want to upgrade because they can't hire FO's. This is absolutely wrong and I don't support DEC's bypassing eligible FO's that want to upgrade.

The ALPA is bad argument is probably best for another thread as it doesn't relate directly to DEC's. However, I will voice my opinion. ALPA representing the regionals and the majors is a definite conflict of interest. There really should be one union that represents only the regionals and pushes for a standard contract across all regional airlines. With that said I'd like to see the demise of the regional industry as a whole. CRJ-700/900 and EMB-170/175's should be mainline birds. It really upsets me seeing single type certificate aircraft like the 170/190 being flown with one at the regional airlines and one at mainline.