Originally Posted by scambo1

Yes I was military and I commute often in the jumpseat. I have seen some questionable piloting skills, but very, very, very rarely...and none bad enough to bust a line check. Its easy to evaluate from the jumpseat tho, but all of this is beside the point...just dont put me in the DC-9 because my steam guage SA is not that high.

I cannot and will not disagree with the fact that most new hire regional pilots don't meet Delta's stated pilot hiring standards when they are hired at the regionals...again, beside the point.

My point is that these pilots are flying Delta passengers...in the case of Comair, they exclusively fly Delta pax. The decision points -as I see them are:

1. What guage of aircraft should be flying for the mainline?

2. How else can we reach out for unity except to realize that DCI pilots are (actually) Delta pilots except in name.

You fly the DC9. I think the DC9 guage is mainline. I also happen to think that anything with a first class seat is mainline. I also think that anything over a certain seat size (lets say 45 seat for an arbitrary figure) should be mainline (how many seats were on a DC3 when they were in pax service and how much did those mainline pilots get paid relative to pilots today?).

The arguement that DCI pilots dont meet Delta hiring standards is a fair arguement, but it is also the issue most easily dealt with - the standards are firm. Period. My understanding is that some recent hires have been let go due to non-performance...is this really a problem?