They do indeed. I attribute that primarily to multi crew licenses and no solo time during initial training.

I agree with the person who said we're arguing with our own egos. The advantage to starting out at a large carrier instead of the current regional model is the experience of mentors.

In the 80s (the last time people with wet commercials were hired at big airlines) new hires went into the engineer seat and watched airline operations for a year or two before upgrading to the right seat. The captains had decades of experience and in most cases were able to provide effective mentorship.

I've seen plenty of competent and safe 25 year old captains over the past few years but they lack depth of experience and having them as the primary mentors for the next generation of civilian pilots is unwise.

Pretending that the purpose of the regionals is to reduce the liability of the airline when an inexperienced crew kills people is absurd. Their only purpose (directly stated by Kirby) was to create a C scale wage. In that regard they have been utterly fantastic over the past two decades. Every single pilot should be cheering the end of that nightmare.