Originally Posted by MrSkywest

So it sounds like the answer to my question is that SW requires 1000 hours of SW or jet time?

The fact that a few of the 325 may have a lot of other experience does not make my math "way off lol". I think you would agree that the majority of those 325 don't have a lot of jet experience.


SW is back to less than 3 year upgrades. SW has a bunch of planes coming quickly. It will not be long before we are down to the 2 year upgrade. As that happens we get into quantum effects if you will, with a much higher % of FOs not feeling ready to upgrade or not having the 1000 hours (Jet or SW?).

As all these things happen the company will have to make adjustments to continue to get pilots quickly enough. Higher pay will come and SW will compete more in the pay area than it has because it will have to. The other airlines can't grow because of lack of pilots but SW can and will if it can get the new hires to come to SW.

If SW has a 1000 jet time requirement it could easily end up with a street captain situation, as could all airlines. I don't know why so many regional pilots see huge increases in pay rates as something that won't happen. The Chinese airlines have just increased their contract rates to 287,000 for a captain, a big increase. The regionals can get more pilots, a lot more, if they increase the pay rates a lot. The guys with experience who are out there, and I know many, don't consider 36 an hour as a serious pay scale. Even if hired as a captain they don's consider 64 a flight hour as enough either. There should be no regional captain making less than about 110 an hour if you want to set the rate at what the market demands. I am probably on the low side of this. The pilots who are out there and not willing to work have 10000 to 25000 hours. If you pay them they will come. IMHO.