I'm not a "lifer", but where's it written that regional pilots MUST go to mainline? At the end of the day, it's just a damn job. If pilots want to stay where they're at, then that's their business. Who cares? What other career or job out there always expects people to move on? None really, but for some reason, high and mighty "fellow" aviatiors always make time to criticize career decisions of others.

I fundamentally disagree, on several levels. But let me make some things clear before we get into the meat of my argument:

1. I don't blame the young ladies, the overwhelming majority of whom are qualified and if not certainly WILL be qualified by the time they've worked the right seat for a few years. They did not establish this policy and they are not going to be able to protect themselves from the downsides of this policy, so they might as well take advantage of it. The majority of guys going to WAI , OBAG, and WAI are looking for advantage too, not necessarily supporting those organizations. Nobody should be throwing stones at the young ladies.

2. I don't blame the majors. A significant subset of their clientele consider the appearance of diversity to be important. The "right people" in the cockpit to them is as much a marketing ploy as the right uniforms and the right paint scheme on the metal. And generally no more and no less.

The problems I see with this are twofold.

1. To further their own careers (and fill those diversity slots) supervisors will put people from those targeted groups in positions they really are NOT ready for. This increases their chance of failure in those positions, occasionally with catastrophic results for the person involved and for the people who were depending on that job to be done correctly. But also a potential career hit even for the person the affirmative action was ostensibly supposed to help. Don't say this doesn't happen because I've seen it - careers of promising junior people ruined by pushing them into jobs they weren't quite ready for by supervisors motivated to increase their own promotion chances by showing their diversity support bonafides.

2. You don't promote equal opportunity by NOT promoting EQUAL opportunity. It is inherently DIVISIVE to target groups for special outcomes, even if that special outcome is just their pro rata share. They will forever in the minds of those who didn't get the job be looked at as tokens and people who couldn't get the job on a level playing field, and even among their peers, many will harbor the idea that the person really shouldn't be there. And this, unfortunately, will keep the prejudice going even after the person has shown they are entirely competent to do the job.

I'm not saying it's the end of the world or that we won't survive it as a nation, we've done worse (Japanese-Americans in WWII) and the world didn't end. But this, like that, is bad policy, IMHO.

Wow can you offer anything without being so facetious?

And no, it's a proven fact.

The entire regional model is predicated on the constant churning of cheap labor. I’ve got a decade and a half at my company and cost a heck of a lot more than a 2 or 3 year pilot. Never forget what side of the balance sheet you’re on. Hint. It’s the liabilities column, NOT the asset column.

Last I checked, every job has the employee as the liability column not asset.

Oh do tell!

You seriously don’t get it.

A 10 year captain at my airline costs 50 percent more than a 1 year captain.

The freaking cost index we fly is driven primarily by the captains salary. It’s the single biggest expense. Don’t say fuel is - the carrier pays for that.

That’s pretty funny that you think any regional airline is that organized!

You mad bro?