I'm not out of touch with the industry. I've been in it and a full time, active pilot longer than many in it have been alive, and I'm very active as an pilot now...but the notion that regional pilots all making half a million dollars, and that Omni pilots are flocking to a regional and making that money their first year, is fanciful. Were that really the case, the regionals would rapidly become a destination airline. We wouldn't see thread after thread of regional first officers whining about being "forced" to upgrade, and the ACMI's wouldn't be full of regional pilots who are going for bigger and better. I wouldn't have friends bailing from the reigonals to make considerably less at major/legacy airlines. We'd see flow from FedEx and UPS to regionals...not happening. It's not going to happen.

There may be the occasional, rare case of a regional pilot making 450,000, but to suggest this is the norm or that the typical regional pilot is making this money, or that an Omni pilot can plan on bailing from his 767 to make 450,000 at a regional, frankly, is bull****.