Originally Posted by Convairator

While I agree that the bar needs to be greatly raised concerning regional hiring minimums, I have one objection with the ATP certificate requirement for new FO's. If you look at ATP mnimum requirments, you will see 1,500 hours total time, which I greatly agree with. However, you will also notice that you need 500 hours cross country.

It is very difficult to get 500 hours cross country as a CFI, because most of your flights are local in nature, and very few are x-countrys. It takes a really long time to get that much x-country time as a CFI.

How does one get all that x-country time. People on this forum will certainly say, fly freight, light piston twins, whatever it takes. Unfortunatley, there are not enough jobs for all the newbies to go work at ameriflight and airnet. I agree with 1,500 hours, but due to the nature of the flying, an ATP might be a stretch for certain jobs. I was very fortunate to fly at a 121 freight company and got hired at 300 hours. With the new minimums, that would have no longer been possible. Personally, I think it was a great experience, and I dont see how flying as a CFI for 2 years before that and doing 9,000 touch and goes in a 172 would have better trained me.