Your post makes it seem like everyone we hire has no PIC time. Do we hire younger guys with little to no PIC time? Yes. I had a 24 year old in my class with no 121 PIC time, but was a captain on a metro flying single pilot at night, 135 freight.

The metroliner. The ones that back in the day, ya know back in the day it was flown with two pilots and a handful of pax. This guy was doing it by himself, at night. And then came to Delta.

We hire some young guys with no PIC time, but the vast majority of the people we hire come from regional airlines (myself included) and we did 8-12 years at a regional. Others come from low cost carriers, military, corporate, etc. We aren't hiring guys that are CFI's.

We also hire military guys who haven't flown in a crew environment. Is that going to bite us? No. We train them. We hire guys with no pic. We hire guys with a ton of PIC. Everyone is trained to the same standards. Everyone learns day in and day out at this job.

I flew with MANY Comair pilots when they shut down when I was a RJ captain. Some were good, some were very very difficult. Try teaching a guy who has been an RJ captain for 18 years that he is now a FO. That doesn't go over well. This may also shock you. Some of those long time RJ captains with a lot of hours, like flying their RJ. Some did not want to come to Delta. They didn't really have a good attitude towards Delta after Delta took that from them.