Sort of. Bigger planes generate (a lot) more revenue. The only way pilots justified very high pay was that in the dawn of the jet age the planes got larger... MUCH larger, so the pilots could rationalize that if they got A pay for flying B number of pax, they should get X pay for flying Y pax. Pilots actually didn't get paid much when they flew four engine radials with 30 pax.
In fact RJ pilot compensation is probably pretty similar to what Dan Roman got in the DC-4, accounting for inflation. It might even be better.
That was how we got to where we are, but the mainline guys are DEFINITELY in the drivers seat. They wouldn't care if regional pilots got paid more, just not at THEIR expense. So they tolerate the whipsaw while at the same time negotiating for scope to limit the impact on their careers.
That's not changing, major pilots are not going to expend negotiating capital to "save" the regional pilots, especially since there's a perception that the majority of them are younger noobs who might have a just a touch of entitlement to things they haven't earned.
As a member of the lost gen, I can certainly relate and sympathize but I also need to make up for that lost decade financially and am in no mood whatsoever to cede any of my slice of the pie to somebody who soloed when I was teaching FO's to be RJ CA's.
Any other discussion is wishful thinking... wish in one hand, poop in the other and see which one fills up first
