Attorneys: Airline concerned about pilot's ability before 2009 crash - CNN.com
The problem is that CA Renslow (rest in peace) struggled even at upgrading from a Saab 340 to the DH4. However Colgan was expanding rapidly as Continental put more mainline flying to really cheap regionals like Colgan. We lost a lot of positions at EWR because Continental started using Colgan extensively. Colgan failed to do appropriate background checks on him. They also paired him with an FO (may she rest in peace) that was trained at an FBO and commuted in from SEA via a red-eye FedEx flight through Memphis the previous evening. She slept in the crew room while awaiting her evening's flight.
We had a lot of older pilots at XJT (or BTA, as it was known) and all of them were great to work with. Nearly all of them were Houston-based, and had wives and kids. A lot of them planned on staying for the duration of their career. It made sense for a lot of them to just stay on at the top of payscale until retirement instead of transitioning to FO positions at a major. ExpressJet was a great airline to work for and they made me a better pilot.