This is a role the Union's should take at each airline. The FAA already licenses pilots to work at an airline. It is up to each airline (management and pilots) to determine what other qualifications they desire new hires to possess. Having yet another layer of global oversight, whether it is a professional board or some type of government entity, would be overly invasive in a private industry.

In my opinion the root cause of our issue here is the deregulation of the industry. Once the government subsidies and control were removed the airlines had to compete in a free market. It has driven profit margins so low that airlines are forced to look to save money anywhere possible. Labor cost reduction is low hanging fruit for management. It has reduced entry level job pay to the point that, I believe, the most important qualification to management is whether or not the applicant will be willing to tolerate the low QOL and pay that is dictated by their business model.

There was a time not to long ago in this country that major airlines hired pilots with zero time. They were hiring professionals that had the base foundation to be trained to fly airplanes. That standard of hiring has been thrown away. Now all it takes is willingness to put up with their poor work environment and the FAA minimum qualifications.

It takes way more than numbers in a book to have what it takes to be PIC of an airplane. The base issue here is that regionals are not able to consistently recruit true professionals into their ranks because of the pay and work rules.

I personally believe that a much more effective legislative action would have been to prohibit the liability protection of majors from actions of the regional and force the regional airline to fly its own paint. If the major was on the hook for liability at the regional and they were prevented from making the regional look like a mainline aircraft there would be a lot of CPA contracts not getting renewed.

Another way to help us legislatively would be to pass a minimum fare requirement. If the airlines were forced to charge a minimum fare to prevent the impact of LCC's and support the legacy airlines we would see a positive trend in the industry.

Just my humble opinion.