Nobody seems to understand who the REAL culprit is - THE CONSUMER!! If you were not a pilot, would you be willing to PAY for GOOD PILOTS, a comfortable airplane, bountiful schedule offerings, excellent in-flight service, SAFETY, etc???? Since deregulation, the airline industry has continually had to bid down to the lowest bidder because CUSTOMERS are not educated enough to feel justified to pay what they should pay. Most discretionary travelers prefer CHEAP over everything else. Only business and first class travelers care about anything but "value".
What we need is to educate the customer. What's the difference between Captain Sully and the "Captains" of the last three regional airline crashes? Oh, Sully is experienced and therefore "expensive". Congress is ****ed; the Colgan 3407 disaster really opened their eyes to the true nature of post-deregulation aviation, where pilots can train at a factory school, buy themselves 250 hours of turbine time at Gulfstream and magically become a "captain" someday. Any coincidence that all three of the last US fatal airline crashes were "captained" by a Gulfstream alumn? Experience should be EARNED, RESPECTED, and then PROPERLY RECOGNIZED WITH APPROPRIATE COMPENSATION!!
Somehow, the industry needs to do a better job of DEMANDING good pilots and PAYING THEM ACCORDINGLY. Now that it is impossible for people to get career training loans at factory schools, only die-hard pilots who EARN their experience will earn the right to fly in the 121 environment. THEN we will HAVE to be paid accordingly.