Originally Posted by
Duffman
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Like I said, if this were my problem and I had the power to make decisions, I'd be lobbying the FAA for a quicker path to get pilots from CPL to ATP, because it's going to cause a shortage further down the logistics chain.
No. That's where we started from (190 hours total time to the right seat of a jet airliner 20 years ago), and there's a reason for the ATP/1500 hour requirement, history written in blood at the regionals. Foreign airlines still crash narrowbodies and widebodies for the those same reasons.
If airlines need to pay for their pilots to build time, that will happen. Look at the recruiting bonuses they were paying, time building costs are in that ballpark. If they're paying, the airlines could call the tune and specify crew operations to share the time (hood, or FAA add a reg to allow some non-hood shared time in an airline-prep format). Bonus for pilots is that the regionals couldn't eat that cost, it would be passed on to majors who would probably want some control and a good ROI so flow would likely become the norm.
Airlines could run their own academies or more likely farm it out to existing operators... such academies would provide a time-building combo package of dual given and sponsored time building, so you wouldn't miss out on the CFI experience.
But that's all hypothetical, pre-covid I think the problem was not enough commercial student starts, I don't recall there being a problem with rated CPL/CFI's languishing for years unable to build time to 1500 hours. Now some of the entitled crowd might be bummed if they had to hustle or something like that...