Originally Posted by JUG47
...There are peeps out there with 1000 hrs with good quality time, not just instructing at ATP for 200 hours...
Hi Jug47 - welcome to the forum. I'm not quite sure I understand your reply. If you are saying there are a ton of 1000 hour guys out there, respectively, you're wrong. We are not seeing them, nor are the other regionals. The majority of FO hiring at regionals is now in the sub 800 hour area.
If you're saying there are a ton of 1000 hour guys out there, but they aren't willing to work for $21/hour flying six legs a day four days straight, you might be right. And (here's reality) when regionals, including Colgan, get done hiring all the 250 - 500 hour pilots out there who will, maybe, just maybe they'll raise first year salaries and hire all the 1000 hour guys who are holding out.
When I said we are "scraping the bottom of the barrel" what I meant was it's not that the pilots aren't qualified - they won't be on the line unless they can pass training and their 121.441 ride - it's just the hiring times have dropped from 1000 hours down into the 500 and 600 hour range. For us that's a problem. We are currently upgrading pilots to captain that were hired as late as March of 2005. If your seniority number comes up after 16 months and you were hired with only 500 hours, you won't meet insurance mins for upgrade. Hence we are short captains. With our still relatively short upgrade times we must have some 1000 hours guys in the hiring mix.