Originally Posted by
Joeshmoe
You may be. I don't think a 190hr pilot should touch one switch inside a commercial airliner. Yes, apparently we are in agreement on that. Lets go back to my first post to you on this topic :
The reason is the public is naive and this naive public not only puts faith in the airlines that they hire competent pilots but they probably don't have a clue what constitutes "high time" for a pilot. We all know very well what is low time vs. high time but 1000TT to the flying public may seem like a ton of time. Ask the little old lady in row 12 what she thinks is alot of flight time and I'm sure thats what you will hear.
In addition the public sees thousands and thousands of flights take-off and land every day, day in and day out without incident with the very same low time pilots that are now flying so they tend to take a percentage attitude that accidents in an aircraft still seem rare. Take all of this naive knowledge that the flying public has and it doesn't take a Wharton MBA to see why its all about PRICE. The only ones who give a rats a** about pilot time are PILOTS.
This is what I took issue with. Its assinine to think sending letters to the editor about "making the public aware" of pilot flight hours is going to accomplish anything. As DME stated in his post, its the free market economy of supply vs. demand that will ultimately and DOES ultimately dictate that price, not flight hours, will win over the buying public.
Well one person's letter to the editor will probably not make a difference. If several letters to the editor, and maybe another reporter friend of a pilot decide to take it on and then given the tendency of news to go over the top with things that are unsafe, I think the public would take notice. We may never know until it happens and I implore all here to do what you can.
The problem with your free market argument is airlines are not paying pilots like they are in demand yet. Instead of lowering their standards and getting low time guys who will accept any pay rate in hopes of better pay later, they should be raising pay so that the 32 year old part time CFII with an office job and 1200 hours says, "hey, maybe I'll go be a full time pilot now that I can make an actual living at it".
Certain airlines may not ever try to attract and retain good, safe pilots through good pay and benefits. Those should be exposed and shunned.
Attract quality, not quantity.