The problem is that the AAG business model REQUIRES regional feed and they DON’T (at least not yet) need flow. They can (at least at present) meet their mainline new hire needs by hiring ex military, hiring away competitors regional pilots, and hiring ULCC people who are still junior enough to be tempted. But increasing the rate of acquisition of their own regional pilots would just hurt their bottom line. They’d much rather hurt their competitors bottom lines by stealing their pilots than make it harder to keep their own regionals fully staffed.
And I really think if F9 and NK do something about their ludicrous first year pay, a lot of regionals are going to lose a lot of reasonably senior people.
This will be interesting to watch play out.