The issue with airline hiring today is not flight time. It is the quality of the individual. The legacy airlines were hiring zero time pilots back in the good old days. I know a pilot that retired as a 747 Captain that was hired right out of college with no flight experience. What we have today is an industry that has lowered the bar for the quality of the person. It used to be that working for an airline was prestigious. Crew members were treated with respect by the companies and the traveling public. Airline tickets were expensive and people put on their best dress or a suit to travel. The type of person recruited by the airlines for entry level jobs had the world by the balls. They were the top 1% and could be just about anything they wanted to be i.e. doctor, lawyer, engineer etc. Now because of the constant decay of the pay, work rules and unstable fiscal status of the industry those type of applicants are choosing other careers. I know that there are still a great number of the real Professionals coming to the field but the trend is headed the wrong way. More often than not when you meet a new pilot in the industry they are the polar opposite of a professional. They come from a generation of people that do not take responsibility for their actions.

Passing a regulation to require an ATP will not fix the problem. It just means that the next hiring wave will require these unprofessional individuals to fleece some poor student for a little more flight time.