Originally Posted by JamesNoBrakes

The 1500 rule thing is due to economics. If you are an insurance company, would you rather that the airline increase the minimum to 1500 if the quality is better, or let the 250 wonders in if they meet certain standards? As the person applying, you'd probably like the latter option. Problem is, it takes money to put more comprehensive tests in there, evaluate someone in multiple situations, assess someone fairly. If you can get a higher overall quality with less money spent, then that's where it's going to go. That's where 1500 comes from. It's no guarantee, it's not even going to be a better pilot in some cases, but it's going to waste less time and resources trying to find the adequate pilots, because there are likely more of them at the 1500 level than the 250.