I agree that competitive mins will go down. They should. 1000 TPIC requirement is going away. That's very important because instead of chasing the quick upgrade, pilots can just go to the best regional carrier and wait for the call (whether they upgrade or not). Competitive TT's are going down. They should as well. Instead of spending 10 years at a regional, you can spend 3-5 years at a regional. That is good as well.

What I absolutely disagree with is that the big major airlines (AA, DAL, UAL, SWA, Alaska, Jetblue) will ever have to "take what they can get" in terms of candidates. They will always be able to be selective.

They won't ever need to drop the 4 year degree discriminator. They won't ever have to hire someone who has a reputation of being a bad pilot to fly with. There are 20,000+ pilots at regionals. That doesn't include flight instructors with over 1500hrs, 135 pilots, or tens of thousands of others with an ATP. Not to mention ULCC's.