I wish everyone would lay off the RJ's and their pilots.
You are, unquestionably, the victim of some unfair prejudice. But my personal opinions to this regard are different than those of your average passenger. My characterization of RJ pilots is based on my own experiences, the experiences of friends and coworkers, and even by some of what I read on this message board.
Let me explain what I mean. By working for a commuter, then moving on to the majors, and finding my way BACK to the commuters I had a relatively unique perspective that not many people share. I was able to see the evolution of regional airline pilots over the span of a decade.
Now you may be thinking, "Nothing changed". On the contrary, everything changed. At the most basic level the
attitude of regional airline pilots towards their jobs changed. And it is this new attitude, I submit, that exposes your operations to greater risk.
In the mid 1990s, people were still in a rush to get to the majors, but the hurdles were higher. PFT existed, to be certain, but even PFT candidates had in excess of 1500 hours TT and 500 multi-engine. And for their $10,000 "investment" they earned the privilege of flying a Jetstream or a Brazilia. They worked hard. Sometimes flying as many as 10 leg days with no autopilot, no flight attendant, in all weather and in a variety of airspace.
As with most things in life, those which you work hardest for you appreciate the most. Knowing full well that not every pilot would make it to the big leagues, these regional pilots strove for excellence. That is not to say that everyone followed the rules every time, but they made no conscious effort to DISregard the rules.
Fast forward a decade.
Today many of your peers make the choice -- the conscious decision -- to violate their company regulations. Many times the choice seems inocuous. They choose not to wear their hat. They choose to wear an Ipod on the flight deck. It makes a customer such as myself wonder, "What other parts of their ops manual are they ignoring?"
Sometimes their choices are less inocuous. On my second tour through the commuters I saw pilots
choose to do a haphazard preflight. I saw pilots choose to continue unstabilized approaches and force landings from bad situations. We've all seen pilots CHOOSE to push on in weather that should have been respected. or CHOOSE to press a fuel situation further than they should have.
This generation of pilots never had to work for what they have been given, and as a result they do not appreciate what they have. They do not protect and honor the profession. And as a result the profession will not be what it was when it is passed to the next generation.
My generation made mistakes. The outsourcing of turbojet aircraft was a big one. Scope should have been ironclad. We screwed up. But our mistakes were political, whereas some of your peers are out there each and every day making the choice to push the envelope and to incur risk not only on behalf of themselves but on behalf of 50-70 passengers and their families.
It is those people who make me think twice about buying a ticket on an RJ. Perhaps i'm being dramatic. But, if so, the difference in pilots between the mid 90s and the mid 2000s has been as dramatic in my eyes.
So I hope this explains why I dont "lay off" of RJs and their pilots. I expect more from them. I expect them to strive for excellence every time. It is a matter of integrity -- doing the right thing, even when nobody is watching.