upandsky-

You will never cover all your bases. ATP mins, a certain amount of PIC, and say 300 multi-engine minimum requirement to get on at any 121 carrier will squash the chances of any of those issues.

I have 1200 hours of flight instruction given, and not a single one of those hours was the same. Every student is different, every lesson is different with varying weather conditions, time constraints, and so on. It's only 1 hour 1000 times over if you make it that. You are the PIC, you are constantly making command decisions. A CFI that says that quote about how flight instruction was is immediately telling me that they sucked as an instructor.

The multi-engine requirement will make them go out and at the least teach MEI or fly corporate or small time freight. Flying corporate was some of the best experience I gained prior to the airlines and really helped prepare me for being an airline captain. It all rode on me alone- from the normal pilot stuff to taking care of the pax.

Then we come to the issue of the airline training departments. A TRAINING program and not a checking program is what is absolutely necessary. The former is rare at the regionals.