The MPL programs in other countries use very little actual flight time, and significant hours in simulators. And what they produce are hardly real, thinking pilots. They are trainees with passengers on board, which is what the 1500/1000 hour rule was created to eliminate.

A real-pilot training track could be developed as an in-house or airline controlled program to get pilots trained with far less than 1000 or 1500 hours. Every pilot I ever flew with as a new hire from ATP flight school was excellent and most had about 600-700 hours when they got into their first RJ job.

The armed forces create combat-ready pilots in 300-500 hours. So the same could happen to create airline-ready crews. It just depends on the quality of the training and the monitoring, and motivation of the trainees. Motivation may be a problem if they are working such an intense training program to get a $22,500 job, so they better figure out that problem too.

If the airlines propose to create their own pilots, they law would be written to allow it. They still want to minimize the costs, so that is what is likely being discussed now. How cheap can they make it and still get the government to sign off on it. My guess is simulators would not be allowed to exceed 50% of program hours. Much less simulator time as compared to the MPL model, where they use 75-80% simulator time. You need to fly actual airplanes to create actual pilots.