Originally Posted by Qotsaautopilot

You're joking right? Regional airlines work on capacity purchase agreements which means that the the legacy carriers buy every seat on the plane and resell them for whatever they choose. Those small markets are often highly profitable because they are convenient. A ticket out of south bend is probably twice as much as a ticket out of ORD. The regional airlines can't afford to pay pilots more because the legacy carriers pay very little for those seats and keep the massive profits for themselves. If the outsourcing stops or the legacy carriers decide to actually pay an appropriate fee to the regional airlines you'd have an evenvironment where profits might take a slight hit but you could pay the pilots an appropriate wage with no increase in ticket price.