Welcome to the RJ world! We started seeing this trend starting in 2016. As an LCA at the RJ level it was extremely common to see students with 50-100 hours of OE. Even had a few get their consolidation done while still on OE.

IMHO this was all caused by multiple triggers….age 65/stagnation, less teenage kids interested in aviation, cost of entry to fly, general aviation shrinking, poor pay at the regionals (return on investment) and many more.

Raising the retirement age will shrink the pool even more IMHO. What you are seeing is the new reality in aviation.