Are you aware of some of the hiring that has taken place at these regionals over the past few years? At one point, some of them were hiring pilots with 250 hours total time and a multi-engine rating (but with little to no multi-engine time other than what it took to get the rating). When you combine that level of experience with the fact that this profession now has a value that cannot possibly be attracting the "best and brightest" anymore (in general... I'm sure there are exceptions), you have a First Officer flying OUR passengers around that is of little to no help to the Captain and completely unqualified to assume command of the aircraft should the Captain become incapacitated. Now, pair that First Officer with a weak Captain, like the Captain of that Colgan flight in BUF, and you have a recipe for disaster! And don't try to say there aren't weak Captains at the regional level. Even back in the "good old days" when regionals were just a stepping stone to a major position and most of the pilots were really sharp guys, there was that 10% or so who, shall we say, "had reached the pinnacle of their career." Those guys just weren't the "sharpest tools in the shed", and as their F/O, you had to watch them like a hawk. I have to think, with the severe degradation of the value of this career now, that percentage of weak Captains is higher. It's for THAT reason I will not put my family (or fly myself) on all but a couple of our DCI carriers.

So, are all of those pilots "good enough to fly our passengers?" I say no. There is a disconnect between the standards Delta expects of its mainline pilots and what they have allowed to happen by outsourcing our pilots.