Originally Posted by
Slice
Those CRJ courses are a waste of money in my opinion. The airline will teach you everything you need to know if you get hired. If you one can't pass that training perhaps they aren't ready for airline flying. It's ok to have self-confidence as a low timer but no 300 hour guy is truly ready to be in command of a regional jet. You are in the right seat to assist the Captain as necessary and take over if something happens to him. The lower and more widespread this trend becomes, the more I don't want my family on anything but a mainline flight. I think it's only a matter of time until we see an increase in incidents and/or accidents because the deck is being stacked against experience.
300hrs couldn't put you in command of a jet anyhow.
The CRJ courses are usually cheaper when affiliated with a university so I don't think he'll be spending the "ATP" costs. I'm not so sure about the increase in accidents/incidents either. The training is pretty damn good at most carriers. Just because the time requirements have been lowered doesn't mean the expectations of the pilots has been lowered. In training, they expect just as much out of the 250hr guy as the 3000hr guy. I don't recall the classes ever being split with high timers in one and low in the other. Everyone is in the same class, studying the same stuff, taking the same sim rides, etc etc.