This will not be a popular position ....especially amongst my former regional brethern, but I believe that as MINIMUM.. if you want to be an AIRLINE PILOT at ANY level.... to sit in EITHER SEAT you should be an ATP. Would that magically solve all the problems... NO. but it would be a start. You hear it bantered about all the time how the "regionals" were hiring 300 hour pilots. Yes it did happen, I know of ONE at RAH, a female. I do know it happend at other carriers.. but not every new hire during the last boom was a 300 hour wonder. In my training class at S5 for the E170... our low time guy was a 900 hour CFI...and we had a number of guys like that. MOST of the guys and gal... had 1200-1500 hours, several came from other carriers, COMAIR, MESA and IFL. I had top time at just about 3000 hours. we had two people wash out... one had 1300 hours, the other 2400 hours. Both had problems with the "speed" at which things happened in the jet, they just could not adapt. I had a friend who went to ASA with 1900 hours... they had a couple of guys who had less than 500 hours.. but most had well over 1000 hours. My point is..... were very low time pilots hired... YES... were they a majority... I dont think so ... not by a long shot... infact I would bet the sub 800 hour pilot was a small minority across the board. Maybe its was different at some other carriers and they hired LOTS of those low time guys... but that was not my experience.