Originally Posted by de727ups

"nobody seems to fuss when people pay for type ratings, so why should this be any different"

People who pay for a 737 type are guys with 1000 TPIC looking to move on. It's a whole different thing from 300 hour PFJing.

As far as all things being equal "as long as you pass the airlines training". You can't tell me that an airline that is a bottom feeder in so many ways isn't a bottom feeder when it comes to MAPD? Do they screen and train to a US military level? I don't believe getting through ground school and IOE makes a 300 hour guy competent to be a jet airline pilot just because he "passed the training".

The training world and real life are just two different things. The guy with more experience in the real world will bring a higher standard to the cockpit. It's a standard I'd rather see the bar raised to rather than see how low the bar can go. Besides that, I'll never be a fan of "airline pilot" being an entry level job, for a lot of reasons.

So, you can call me a Grandpa, or Yoda, or whatever else you like, but you'll never convince me that it's a good thing for an airline to have a PFJ program that puts 300 hour pilots in the right seat of an airline passenger jet that says "United" on the side of it.

And I'm by no means bashing Mesa pilots. One of my best buddies was a checkairman there (with some good MAPD stories) and I helped him get on at UPS a few years ago.