Originally Posted by Adlerdriver

I'm surprise everyone let this gem slide under the radar.

No airline should be hiring 250-500 hour pilots. At least US carriers are able to uphold standards. Do you really think the carriers hiring low time pilots would do that if they had any other choice? Once any pilot begins an airline job flying the type of highly automated aircraft you mention, he is basically done building flying skills. Whatever he shows up with is going to be the foundation for the rest of his career.

If you think a 250 hour pilot coming through the civilian pipeline has got anything close to a worthwhile foundation of skills by that point, you're kidding yourself.

Just because other airlines have taught their button pushers the basics by that point doesn't make it a good plan. Guess where many of those 250 hour wonders go after IOE? To the RFO seat where they get to watch someone else takeoff and land and watch the autopilot fly at cruise. Those airlines are simply betting their passengers lives on the hope that most flights can get by with the automation and that events will stay on script. We've seen numerous recent events that show us when stick and rudder skills are actually needed, that type of gamble is a very, very bad bet.

There simply is no substitute for actual flying experience. 14 hours on a 777 with half of it in the bunk and the other half watching someone else fly doesn't count. No matter how many times you do it.