Originally Posted by Flaps50

It's imperative for our profession to insure that this additional experience gets put in the books. The first time a person is really in command of an airplane should not be at a 121 airline and that 121 airline should not be anyone's first flying job. That's the first step at making professional pilots (professional = being paid) how is someone a professional if they have never had a flying job before. Becoming professional as a pilot is meant for flying smaller planes without a boat load of passengers on board preferably teaching the craft itself for awhile for starters.

FO 121 Airline Minimums = ATP with 1500 hours, previous professional experience as a pilot, and a 4 year degree is what I say. Wages will go up if this happens too. No more 6 month wonder kids. (oh yeah, read speak and understand English too ;-) Lets go a step further and make Captain mins for part 121, 2500 hours and 1000 turbine engine.

When regionals weren't hiring anyone with less than 1500 hours anyway there was still a large pool of applicants because the wage and benefit collapse from 911 hadn't happened yet. Now there are way less pilot starts in the country do to the erosion of the profession by airline managements and the supply of qualified pilots under these new rules will be much less.