Originally Posted by
Beech90
What about age? Is a 19-21 year old qualified to fly as a F/O should they have 1500TT?
The NPRM allows for the restricted ATP at age 21, but only for BS 141 program graduates. Technically it applies to military too, but there's essentially no way you could get through military training and have 750 hours before age 23, and even if you did, you'd still owe the military a bunch of years.
Other than that, the few folks affected by the age 23 requirement will mostly be people who didn't go to college. The general consensus in the industry would be go back to school, chase girls, drink beer, maybe learn something and then worry about the airlines.
With a little luck, unions will make an effort to get the company to preserve the seniority numbers of those already employed so they can return at age 23 with seniority intact. I suspect that's the best they're going to do.
With all that said, I think 21 is old enough to be an FO but there's no interest I've seen in making that happen carte blanche, other than for BS 141 grads..