are regional airlines a big scam?
 

It seems to me that the more we learn about these regional airlines, they're perpetrating a big scam on us. The airlines and entire industry try to convince us that they're "just as safe" as the mainline flights, yet as we learn more about these operations, the pilots are working on fumes and often fail the tests they are given to assess their airworthiness:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/newss...ple-tests.html

I'm beginning to think this "race to the bottom" in terms of costs for the airlines has put us all in a giant scam.

Thoughts?

Well, that is just disappointment, because we believe and trust the airlines and they just use us and we fall for the scams.

They're probably only into money!

I have always refused to fly regional carriers for a few reasons. Service and comfort were always a concern, but safety, for me, is an issue as well. If the mainline carriers ever switch to a domestic/regional international/mainline model, I'll have to decide how I'm going to manage.

Hypothetical: Fantastic job opportunity arises but it requires moving to a city that is only served by regional carriers. Do you not take the job because of the aircraft that fly into that city?

You'll have to define, "fantastic job opportunity." I've been able to conduct my business just fine for the last 25 years by driving to/from cities serviced only by regional aircraft. Even now, I live and work in Orange County, but will drive to LAX for international flights, rather than taking one of those little propeller things from SNA to LAX.

Are you offering? ;)

Depends. What's your skillset? :p

I'm a lawyer. I have none. ;)

My home airport (15-20 minute drive) is only served by regional jets, and the nearest big airport (RDU) is a 90 minute drive away. Driving to CLT would take at least 2.5-3 hours. If the price is significantly better out of RDU, I'll go with that, but it often isn't, leaving me on DL or US Canadairs.

The big scam I've found is that the flight attendants keep telling me on American Eagle that "every seat is First Class". Well if that's the case...how come the meals are so awful?

Well...judging by the amount of segments flown by RJs (an RJ might fly 5 segments for 1 mainline segment) and the amount of crashes there are, I'd say they are pretty damn safe. Otherwise I'd have to say that a pilot or flight attendant job for a regional carrier would be a death sentence.
Never once questioned flying a regional, and never felt unsafe.
I fully respect and trust the crew on these airlines.

A couple questions:

1) Is "pretty damn safe" the standard we want or "perfectly safe"?

2) How can you respect crew that continually fails exams?

In addition, what do you suggest we do when the current mainline pilots are retiring? Surely we can't hire the scum from regional airlines. Maybe we could hire straight from flight school, turning mainline carriers into the same as a regional. Really...you have to start somewhere. Regionals also hire a lot of military pilots. Surely our government trains them poorly.
Don't mean to start a rant, but I feel for these pilots who are almost all highly skilled, some probably more than mainline pilots.

With all due respect, what you feel is more or less irrelevant. The data suggest that these regional pilots are failing exams more than your average C-student in Middle America.

I'd love to see perfectly safe, but that would mean no incidents, for any reason, at any time. In that case, I guess we would have to rule out flights on wide bodied Airbuses for the time being, or flying in the vicinity of storms.

Pretty damn safe with continuous improvement with perfectly safe as a goal is going to have to be reasonable enough for me.

So what are the regional airlines doing to ensure continuous improvement?