Pretty clever of Republic, if the FAA will be forced to accept this for fear of being labeled racist. Republic (And other lines which will follow) will be able to go back to the bad old days of what was basically slave labor for SICs paying them enough to just disqualify for food stamps. A more reasonable approach would be to make the restricted ATP 1000 hours for SIC instead of 1500 or the other variables. Also allow pilots between 65 and 70 be SIC. I think these two things will help somewhat for now. Eventually the airlines are going to have to do ab initio training like Lufthansa and others. That is the only way. Hopefully the keep the “wokeness” out of it and accept applicants on merit only.