I don't think it's important to kill off the regional airlines. The goal is to kill off the inability for an experienced pilot to go back to work in an industry that only hires entry level positions.

You don't need thousands of hours as a regional jet captain to serve as an FO on a 737 or A320. The career path the system has established is actually quite counterintuitive. We have (often) low experienced captains in large jets that we call "regional jets" because they seat a little less than 100 pax instead of a little more. They are just as complicated to operate and require just as much skill (often greater skill if they lack auto throttles and other advanced automation features).

When a captain operating an RJ with thousands of hours of captain time goes to the rights seat of a Boeing or Airbus (with a paycut) and spends ten years to upgrade again it is a huge waste of experience resources.

Is an "RJ" no longer an RJ when operated by a major alongside an Airbus?

I don't say I know how to fix it but I do know that the system we have totally sucks for the vast majority of pilots (and probably for the airlines too in most cases). I can't see that getting rid of the system could possibly be any worse than what we have now.

I will say this....if your goal after ten or twenty years of grinding at the regionals and then right seat of a major is a captain job that only pay 150-200K with a lousy retirement plan and mostly useless travel benefits then you are selling yourself short. Just look at what pilots used to make and see how much it has declined over the years.

$200k is nothing in today's dollars based on other professional careers, especially when you consider how long it takes and how much you must sacrifice to achieve it. Besides by the time you get there it all go toward supporting your two ex wives and all those kids who didn't want to wait with you that long.