Originally Posted by
ShyGuy
Oops I was under the impression age matters because you have to be 23 to be able to get an unrestricted ATP. You're slicing it one way, the other way to slice is it saying someone who's just barely qualified to hold an ATP.
Regardless, my beef is with the ALPA's justification with "compared the 1,100 deaths from airline accidents from 1990 through 2009 to the lack of fatalities in passenger-airline accidents since the 1,500-rule was adopted." Causation does not imply correlation. I'm sure the deaths of TWA 800, AA 587, Alaska 261, Ocean Chalks, etc, that make up those 1,100 deaths had absolutely ZERO to do with 1,500 hrs or an ATP rule. It sounds good on paper but it's still a specious argument.
Good point, which is why I always point out that if hours is not the yard stick we should use, then we should advocate for ALL hour requirements to be abolished in ALL regulations. But that's not what these people advocate for when they make this argument. They simply make a surgical target of the atp rule and conveniently ignore EVERY other hourly requirement found in the FARs. Gee, I wonder why certain corporations and industry groups give away millions to politicians to lobby for this? Could there possibly be a labor cost reduction reason for this? Or are these altruistic companies just looking out for the best interest of aspiring pilots by sacrificing their profits in order to get an act of congress to change this?
If causation doesn't imply correlation, then lets do away with ALL hourly requirements. Because, after all, hours doesn't imply safety.