I believe that if you were to wait until someone had the ATP under their belt you'd still be better off than hiring the 300TT wonder. The odds are better that the person with ATP minimums would have flown more than just 20 hours in a piston twin. They'd have a better chance of having that Part 135 job (the IFR job...not the lowly VFR one).
Call me crazy but here's an idea , ATP mins schould be 1000 hours of turbine time.
So you would have a comm lic and then when one reaches the magic number of 1000 in turbine time you go get an ATP .It also would be a way to raise standards and possibly result in higher pay
Is this idea too far fetched?
And then you knock operators such as Cape Air out of business. Creating different levels of the ATP is a consideration.
Meanwhile the 1000 hour pilot who stuck their neck out, did the leg work, found the freight job and was willing to break their backs for the last 500 hours of multi/imc/maybe even turbine that are are going to get passed up for "Mr Gold Seal".
That 1000 hour pilot probably couldn't get the job flying freight...at least IFR.
There's so many holes in these arguments--because our industry has so much varied flying--that there is no cure all. The closest you can come is to have someone with more time and varied experience in their logbook. If there was a way to train for it in simulators it'd be through the extension of the LOFT periods. Consider having two checkrides: the basic maneuvers, approaches, holding, etc. variety and then, after four or five LOFT periods, a LOFT check. But it won't happen because the industry will scream about the cost.
IMHO, the industry "got what it paid for." Now if the public only knew.
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