What is happening right now up on capital hill is exactly what we all want. All this guy is doing is bringing more disclosure to the traveling public, which is exactly what will improve the regional industry. Think about it; the traveling public currently buys a ticket with a well-known name printed on it, and a price. Right now it doesn't matter if there is small text on the ticket indicating the name of the regional operator; people don't know what a regional carrier is and the vast majority don't think about what type of aircraft they will be flying on; They want the lowest price possible. What I am getting at here is that the information available and known to us pilots and to a lesser degree, by those in Washington, is not known by the consumer and demand has not been proportionately affected. It is not household knowledge that the last 5 multiple-fatality aircraft disasters in this country were operated by regional carriers. People don't know of the lower experience, excessively lower pay, and brutal working conditions of regional pilots. They don't know that their pilots could be flying with less than four hours of sleep and are at risk of job loss by refusing to fly under those conditions! If this was known, if consumers knew they were flying on one of these risker regionals where the results may vary, price would not be the only factor considered.
Regional planes have been falling out of the sky and its all economics!!! The regionals are the perfect cost cutting device; labor costs are rock bottom. So the regionals continue to expand, forcing experienced pilots (expensive) out of the system, forcing carriers to lower minimums, hire irresponsibly all the while cutting training costs and outsourcing maintenance. It's called the "race to the bottom." Meanwhile, pilots continue to come to the regionals accepting the unacceptable pay in hopes of a higher paying job in the future, while these higher paying jobs continue to vanish as mainline carriers unload all their expensive flying and expensive pilots to the regionals. These "market forces" will continue to discourage experience from staying and coming into the cockpit. And meanwhile, people unknowingly continue to buy these low priced tickets and fly these regionals which continues to fuel the downward spiral. Informing the consumer of the increasing risks is exactly what will reduce demand and discourage these practices!
Regional planes have been killing hundreds since 2002, and it is serious. There is undeniably an issue here. You can't wait for the airplane crashes to kick out the bad economic players. You have to prevent the bad economic players from playing the game up to that point by setting rules that for a start, ensure that the people on the field get water.