1500 hours is maybe arbitrary, but 1500 (and 200+ ME) hours also used to be the point where you could get a call from a regional back in the day... maybe they knew something back then. I'd say 1000 is the bare min, and that checks with R-ATP numbers (750 is fine for mil, since their process is quite rigorous compared to a low-time civilian pilot).

the 1500 hour rule was nothing more than a gift to the unions by Obama... it had NOTHING to do with safety

The whole concept of the '1500 hr' rule is misleading. Its requiring the second pilot to have some kind of ATP, which is a 1500 hr requirement standard for the full certificate. There are already huge reductions built in (1250, 1000 for 141 programs, 750 for mil) for the R-ATP that allow regionals to shortcut the actual idea of a full ATP pilot in the right seat.

No further reductions to further de-skill the right seat. We don't want $18k/250 hr/pay for training FOs again. Thats what the commuter airlines want to do to reduce their costs. No thanks!

We’re part of the problem.
Half the threads here are about the fastest way to get to a jet, the employers with the shortest upgrades, how do I get there with the least amount of work etc etc etc…
The other half are COVID lol.

Absolutely. I don’t get the disconnect some people have with this. Everyone who is a current airline pilot in this country, especially regional pilots, should fight hard to keep this rule in place. Whether someone thinks it is arbitrary from a practical standpoint is really a moot point.

Allegheny and Piedmont didn't have pay for training either. But you needed 2500 hours TT, 500 ME, and a lunar landing to qualify. To fly a 37 seat Dash 8.
I went from flying freight in a Cessna 402 every night to a Jetstream 31 - a 19 seat turboprop with a 230 knot redline. That thing ate my lunch when I first started. I had close to 2000 TT and over 500 ME. The training cost $10,000 and you weren't "officially" hired until you passed the checkride. I honestly have ZERO problem with the 1500 hour rule. The more you see... the more experiences you have with weather, and shoddy maintenance, and all four seasons... the more times you have to tell the boss or the customer "No" in the interest of safety... the better an airline crewmember you will be.

No, it isn't too much to ask that an airline pilot hold an airline transport pilot certificate.

Two thumbs up for the 1500 hour rule. Don't bother to come without some real weather, real flying and real decision making experience. There's also going to be a lot of 1000 hour upgrades around the corner, and those upgrades shouldn't be counted on to do both jobs combined with a distraction in the cockpit.

If the airlines have to charge $1.00 more per plane ticket to get a 1500 hour pilot in the right seat, so be it.

The 1,500 hour rule was the best thing to ever happen to regional pay. Get lost with that idea.

Going to be? That ship has sailed. AA wholly-owneds have been forcing upgrades for a while, and yes, quite a sizeable amount at 1000 SIC.

Glad to see most people understand that the 1500 hour rule wasn't about safety, it was about the unions

I think it was about safety.

It had a fringe benefit to unions too. But do you really think that commercial pilots should be making $15-19K to fly the public? Also safety related, because people making <$20K aren't going to get much rest since they can't afford to live in the vast majority of domiciles.

oh it was 100% about safety. Whether it promoted safety is a separate discussion

Well you're wrong.

If it was about safety they would have made the rule qualitative instead of quantitative.



False dichotomy.

Qualitative in most anything is open for debate and difficult to measure. Not saying quantitative is perfect. But you cannot look me straight in the face and say 1,500 is no better than 250. Now is it better than 1,400 is open for debate.

Could you imagine the whining if they tried to make it qualitative?

Is 300 hours of turbine time with 60 landings more valuable than 200 landings in 50 hours in a 172? Does private pilot dual in a Cirrus count for more than banner towing in a taildragger? What about 50 hours of burning up the pattern doing soft field landings on a grass strip vs operating IFR in SoCal or New York?

They should definitely give credit to 135 time over CFI time.

In my experience and observation, 700-800 total time is about where things start to finally settle in. But of course that is anecdotal.

This is 100% true. If I were making $19k/yr, I'd be living in a van, and not one of those nice Instagram vans with Ikea cabinets and a fold-out memory foam mattress. I mean one of those old, rusted-out service vans that get the cops called on it. No way I'm getting good sleep if the stray cats are particularly aggressive or there's a cold snap that night.

That's not unreasonable. But 200 hours is to low for 121 (yes there were 141 CPL's with 200 hours flying RJ's 20 years ago).

I don't disagree with that...

But remember that the Colgan pilots both had way over 1500 hours of experience.

There were others issues there (pay & commuting to NYC).

Also they were a product of the system that catered to extremely low-time pilots. Don't take my word for it, read the CVR transcript... it's in their own words.

The CA was a P2F guy too.

Yes, a Delta Connection Academy graduate

A perspective from a CFI who is a few months away from the 121 world..

I wouldn’t want the decrease in time required to be in the flight deck. 1500 hours did the regionals some good. Probably wouldn’t be a pilot if I were making $19k/yr. I made more working at the front desk of a resort making $10/hr right after H.S.

Now, someone else mentioned that 700-800 hours for things to start clicking. I totally agree. I couldn’t imagine flying a jet at 250 TT. I felt prepared/ready to take on the challenge of a jet at around that TT. How would I have actually faired? The world will never know.

I will say this though, regionals won’t increase the training footprint because that costs them A LOT of money. A recruiter once told me that it’s in the ballpark of $50,000 to train a trainee. I’m sure the actual numbers are not far from that if you include ATP-CTP, min guarantee, per diem, and hotels for a 2-3 months. I do believe that they’ll start paying for time building. It’s much cheaper, gets CFIs in sooner and they can drop the program when the next downturn happens (i.e. Republic pre-covid).

That’s my .02 anyways.

You still get the experience, paid for or getting paid.
Doesn’t matter.
Here’s my point, he had 3200+ hrs.
He got hired at Colgan at 650(?) so give or take 2500 hrs of experience came from 121 operations. Same employer for that amount of time.
Now tell me that 900+ hrs of SE piston would have made any difference ?

I think the point people are making is that since he was paying for his training they let him slip through the cracks. If a company was paying for his training they would have cut him loose and stop throwing away money on him. P2F was notorious for a lot of deadly accidents in the 90s and early 2000s because any one who had the money to throw away could fly those airliners. The P2F companies kept allowing subpar pilots to fly because not only were they not spending money on their salaries but the sub par pilots were actually paying the airline to fly their passengers.

CPL at 190-250 hrs, got hired at Colgan at 650 which means he did 400-450 hrs P2F Beech 1900 at the most.
2500 hrs at Colgan flying 121.
Thar little bit of “sub par” P2F didn’t make a difference.
By the way that was also a 121 operation with training, checking and FAA ‘oversight’.

Yes he went from paying a bottom feeder to then being hired by Colgan. Which at the time was the lowest paid pilots and a terrible reputation. Only low time guys or those with multiple skeletons in their closets worked there. It only took 2500 hours for the right circumstances to test his skills or lack there of. A lot of people lost their life in that accident and it made us all look Busch League when the reports came out. He had no business on a flight deck but by paying to fly and the desperation for colgan to find guys who would work for $19,000 a year the perfect storm happened. I am assuming you were not flying around this time?

Yes 1500 hours is an arbitrary number but the only reason the pay is what it is at regionals now is the changes made to the FARS after the buffalo crash. The safety record over the past decade shows that it had a positive effect. Not just for the unions like you are arguing but for safety and the passengers.

I’ll like to add that he had multiple training failures at Colgan.

Colgan was a **** operation at the time. There is a documentary floating about the operation that was eye opening and the way Chuck Colgan ran things there. It wasn’t great….

Oh yeah talk to any one that flew for Colgan during the 2003-2010 era and they can tell you stories that new pilots couldn’t even comprehend. It was a bad time.

During that time I was working for the highest paid regional with one of the best contracts and it doesn’t compare to how far improved the work rules and career are now for even the worse airline. What Colgan was doing during that time was criminal and I am still surprised no one went to jail over their work practices when they came out to the public.

PBS FrontLine “flying cheap”.

I mean one question. What about European pilots sitting in the right seat of 737’s and 320’s with 250 hours? Who can explain that? Those who think you need to be a CFI for 2 years and 1500 hours what are your thoughts on this? Are they better trained? Are they more intelligent that pilots here in the US?


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You assumed wrong, twice.
You’re barking up the wrong tree and twisting arguments.
If the 1500 rule would have been in place then it would NOT have prevented that accident from happening.
It was not lack of experience or the believe thereof.
He had 2500+ hrs on property.
Jail is not the answer for everything but some people involved here should have gone to jail, FAA included.
Where he did his P2F was an ‘airline’ under FAA supervision and where he subsequently got hired (Colgan) was an ‘airline’ equally under FAA “supervision”.
I just threw up a little in my mouth even writing that.
These airlines, past and present get away with literally murder.
What he did 2500 hrs prior has no relevance to that accident.

The thing about foreign pilots is that they are highly discouraged from hand flying or flat out forbidden. This is common in Asia. Sat next to a guy in a 737 sim that could even follow the FD. He had 3000 hours.

I was there from 05-11. It was the most fun I’ve ever had being a pilot. Work at delta now. Actually quite a few people that worked at colgan during that time are at delta now. Worked out well for a lot of us.

He might have learned basic airmanship if he had 1500 hours in GA. He was a low-time P2F kind of regional pilot. You're not going to learn basic airmanship in most 121.

Non-US airline pilots regularly crash (and near-crash) because of basic airmanship failures. Even European airlines.

We haven't done that here in a while, and it's too long of a streak to be just dumb luck.

Some GA (or mil) time gives you some actual flying experience, some challenges you don't get often in 121, and some PIC practice.

Pilots outside the US are often very well trained on book learning, computer programing, and auto-pilot engaging, Better than US pilots in fact, but somehow that still doesn't make up for lack of airmanship.

Just a reminder. The United States reports the highest number of civil airliner accidents in the world. Around 1200 fatalities in commercial air transport in the US from 2015 to 2019 compared to 700 in all of Europe. Don’t get me wrong I’m not European. I’m just saying that this 1500 hours rule doesn’t make any sense. Everyday thousands of flights in Europe (Ryanair, Easyjet etc…) are taking off with copilots that are 25 years old who got their jobs with 250 hours logged. Do you think these compagnies are putting their passengers and planes in danger because of that? This is all politics here in the US. It has nothing to do with the fact that 1500 hours makes you a better pilot to drive a airliner.


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The last airline hull loss was Colgan and the last fatality was that SWA engine failure. Where on earth are you getting 1200 fatalities? You have to be including part 91 stuff which is not the same.