FlyingDoc

You don't think that a pilot with 20,000 hours has more experience than a pilot with 250 or 500 hours? I think that the analogy is quite clear, at least in the medical literature, more experience equals better patient safety; less experience equals less patient safety, more complications, and more deaths. If you do lots of coronary bypass operations (i.e. have more experience, have more "hours of surgery experience", like hours of flying time for a pilot), you'll be better at it than someone who hasn't done many. Really pretty common sense, but it's also been scientifically studied and proven.

I understand that even a pilot or a physician with many years of experience can make a fatal mistake. The AA1420 crash in LIT in 1999 had one of the most experienced pilots at AA as the flying pilot. He made a mistake, didn't arm the spoilers, and tried to land the aircraft in a thunderstorm (all according to the NTSB final report). The first officer that night had only about 250 MD-80 hours; would a more experienced first officer have made sure that the spoilers were armed? Don't know, but maybe.

My point is simply that if I was choosing, I'd pick a pilot with more experience rather than less, just as I'd pick a seasoned heart surgeon rather than one who has only done a few heart bypasses. But, that's the great thing about liberty and free enterprise; everyone can choose for themselves!! Those who like RJs can fly them and those of us who don't can fly larger, mainline aircraft. (Unfortunately, this choice increasingly means that I will choose another airline instead of DL in spite of several years of Medallion status on DL.) And my primary objections to a RJ as a passenger relate more to lack of comfort, the third party companies that fly them, the hassle of "carryon" luggage, etc more than the pilots.