colgan points out that their crew training meets or exceeds requirements of the faa.inspector general of the department of transportation, mary schiavo, points to what she sees as the problem with the regional airlines in general, cost cutting. >> their whole business model is to fly inexpensive aircraft and save a lot of money, because they have a fixed-price contract. so they can fly cheap planes cheaply. they make money under their contract. if they have more expensive pilots and more expensive planes, they don't. >> the regional airlines association disputes that and told nbc news that their focus is on safety, professionalism and reliability of service. still, there are differences within the industry on how much flying time is required to pilot a commercial airplane. >> you can be done with those ratings in as little as 350 hours of experience. and what happens is when people get out of flight school, and they have their required government ratings, they then move on to the regionals because that's who hires them. >> while major airlines usually pay better, they