Guess the starting salary of a pilot for a regional airline (and remember next time you fly one):

[Major Nikon]

24. I can only say that things are going to have to change

There's already a lot of people out there who want to fly for a living. There aren't many people who can self finance the number of hours it takes to get an ATP. It's just too expensive. The way it worked before is a pilot would get to the minimum hours a regional required any way they could so that they could work towards the requirement for the ATP. The reason so many were willing to do it for so little is because they were essentially getting paid to build time. Now in order to find ATP qualified pilots the regionals are either going to have to look elsewhere, or they are going to have to start their own time building operations. The larger carriers are going to have the resources to do this. They will also have the resources to lure previously qualified pilots away from smaller regionals. I'm not convinced this is the best thing for the industry, because I think it may squeeze some of the smaller regionals out of the market. I think it will have a positive effect on the pay of regional pilots and they will be more qualified, which in theory will improve safety (which isn't really a problem). It will almost certainly drive up ticket prices for those now served by regional airlines.