Originally Posted by rickair7777

1. A paid ab-initio program would attract better applicants, who will have more options in life than some mediocre kid with $150K debt and an ERAU flight ops degree. This will help keep compensation reasonable, or they won't be able to retain those people.

2. The airlines would probably want the ab-initio folks to start in the feeders, but regionals can't afford to pay for ab-initio. Majors would have to pay for, and the pilots would then flow through the regionals and eventually up to mainline. This would get effectively integrate feeder/major seniority lists. Might but the regionals out of business in the long term but maybe not.