let me put it another way for you...

I'm from UND, so as you know, I most likely am from Minnesota as well. Now I didn't want to go to Mesaba or Pinnacle so I waited until I could get on with ExpressJet/Skywest or whoever had decent pay. However, there are many people that went to UND who are complete aviation "tools", I know I used to be one until I was "awaken" to the reality of what regionals have been doing. UND does a horrible job at relaying the history of the regionals, probably because certain regionals would stop offering preferential hiring to our grads and thus reduce enrollment.

Unfortunately UND spins out so many pilots, from Minnesota (hint where do Mesaba and Pinnacle have bases), and most of did not have a clue leaving UND what the history of the regionals were like. I wanted to go to Pinnacle or Mesaba initially, but then I actually learned about the low pay for flying CRJ-700/900's and how they replace NWA's DC-9's.

I hope this can add to your understanding why they are proud of their on-time percent yet still fly for insanely low pay to fly a plane, without putting up a big fight, that is replacing mainline jobs at less pay, that is less than a lot of us 50-seat pilots even make.