Thread: Tool of the day
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Old 03-07-2014, 09:32 PM
  #5071  
gloopy
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Joined APC: Jul 2010
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Originally Posted by forgot to bid View Post
So under the new FAA rules, IF I am reading this right and you go to a aviation college you'll be allowed to get a restricted ATP with fewer hours than a regular ATP and get hired by a Part 121 carrier at a younger age (21 vs 23) and with fewer hours (1000 vs 1500).

So someone who learned under Captain Green is allowed to get hired younger and with fewer hours?

That's what I think they say as well. However if there really is red hot demand there's still going to be a need for tons of CFI's and all the other jobs that will become supply pressured with industry wide hiring. The free market will easily ramp up for it just as it has in the past. At the tail end of the last hiring boom we saw minimums slashed and (mostly bottom tier regionals) snapping up sub 500 hour wonders but for most of the cycle "twelve and two" was pretty much a hard min no matter what college you went to. And they still found plenty of pilots.

There's going to be a re-emmerging market for experience oriented flight schools/academies and IMO the successful ones will be able to crush the big uni programs on price, more than making up for the 500 hour differential. They are often set up for the old system (zero time to 300 hours direct to an all glass jet) and that simply isn't relevant anymore. If you have to build time anyway, there's really no advantage in doing touch and goes in quarter million dollar gee whiz glass candy singles for 2-4 times the price.

And you can get 500 hours in under 6 months easy as long as you have a large enough supply of students. If hiring picks up to anywhere near the levels many are saying it will, the career will attract the prospective candidates. If it doesn't, the 500 hours between the two systems likely won't be a major factor anyway. Especially considering that in order to "save" that modest amount of flight time you'll have to spend way, way more tacking it on to your already 6 figure degree in basket weaving studies with a minor in graduation. Plenty of schools will pop up offering 1500 hour programs for significantly less than big uni 1000 hour ones. Not to mention its a quick button push to get rid of the degree requirement in the first place. If there is a squeeze on hiring/supply, that will be one of the first things they do.
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