Originally Posted by
FlyingKat
First it is going to be much harder to build that 1500 in the future than it used to be. A lot of those time building jobs have been slowly going away, and regional airlines are working on agreements with 135 carriers and flight schools to send Pro Pilot graduates to these companies to build time.
Flight instructing is still a great and time honored way to build the time. It's how it used to be done. There was a time when 250 hour pilots just were not hired at regional airlines, not all that long ago. In the 90's, regional pilots were coming in with ATPs.
The smart pilot is going to go to college and get an unrelated degree, something with teeth in the real world. Further, this pilot will get most of their certificates and ratings part 61 at the local FBO. The FBO this pilot purchases their ratings from will also likely be the same place that gives the pilot their first job as flight instructor. This is a time honored way of doing this, I don't see where any change needs to occur at all here.
The pilot will need the extra 500 hours or whatever, but in trade he will not have to live with the extreme debt that comes from a program like ERAU.
As far as the ATP written and ATP are concerned, the airlines will supply both with very
minor tweaks to their training program.
How Regional Airlines might deal with new ATP written requirements | Airline Pilot Info