People "choose" to work because they need to work. Plenty of people work in jobs they don't particularly love, because they're good at the job, and they need money to live. What makes you think being a pilot should be any different than millions of other jobs in America? Do you think people should only ever work in good jobs? There'd be a lot of unemployment if that were the case. Airline pilots' used to have a great profession. That is not the case these days. Now, it's more of a crappy, low paid job. It just happens to be less crappy than a lot of other jobs out there. If people used pride as their only criteria in selecting employement, there'd be a business crisis, as no one would show for a lot of jobs out there. Many many many people use "holey crap, I've got to find some work, or I'm going to end up homeless" as a criteria for finding a job. Based on pride, there's not a regional airline out there that I would work for because they treat their workers like crap. However, I need a job. You free market types tend to think that the free market applies to labor, too. Do you think the meat packing plants would have trouble finding non-illegal labor if they paid a good wage? They get around the labor side of the free market equation by hiring illegals. A true free market would force labor rates up, but no good millionaire would let a few laws stand in their way. So, please, spare me the utter bullsh!t of "if you don't like it, just quit". People don't quit because they can't quit, because the economy is not free and fluid for labor. It there were so many professional pilot jobs out there, the regionals would go out of business, as all of their pilots would quit and go to the good jobs. Regional pilot jobs are not good jobs. They are just plain old bad-treatment jobs. We work them because we have to. Now the Major airline jobs, while still better, are sliding towards the regional QOL and pay, instead of the other way around, as should have been the case. Try fixing that, instead of harping about people taking pride in a job for which they are ashamed to admit how little they earn in.