It's very difficult to lower pay once it's been dramatically increased, e.g. post the 1,500-hr rule.

Not saying it can't happen, but it would take multiple events—including a drop in demand for air travel—for that to happen.

Ok, you won't see a drop in pay, but ALL the bonuses will go away and once a contract lapses, i bet you there won't be any new increases coming any time soon.

Then why haven't the unions forced the airlines to make the bonuses part of the hourly wage? Isn't that what the unions are there to do?

You are asking the wrong person... Hahaha! I used to work for SkyWest. But you can ask the guys over at G7 what happened to their bonuses in 2020.
All we can do is speculate what will happen, and my guess is no better than any ones else. But we all know that for once us pilots have the upper hand and we should NOT give that away.
Lowering the 1500 rule will bring in a young kid into the industry 1 year earlier than normal. And that same kid will have 40+ years in the industry. So my logic is simple. Spend another year at the flight school,
make 20$/h and live with your parents. Then start at a 121 and make millions in the long run. The risk here is a lower salary over 40 year vs a slightly higher salary for 1 year.

Unions can't make those kind of changes at the regional level. The regional that's highest up the hill will get picked off as soon as it's economically convenient. Regional unions know this, and are often driven by lifers who don't want their cushy job liquidated at age 52.

Only one way to win the regional game...

I think most of you saying the rule should stay in place for financial reasons are missing the point of what the FAA does. They are not, and should not be concerned about your retirement portfolio. Their job is to create rules that provide safe air travel without undue burden. If they can't provide hard evidence that it does that, then it should go. Producing artificial barriers to entry to keep salaries higher is not in the mission statement of the FAA. The government does that all the time and it never works out well for anyone not already in the system.

This is correct, anybody who says this or that aviation reg/law/policy should be changed (or not changed) to enhance your career expectations needs to be writing to their congress critters... that's the business they're in. FAA (and RLA, A4A) doesn't care.

Evidence does support the rule has improved safety dramatically. Can you provide hard evidence that it hasn't? It's in you to prove because the results speak otherwise. Good luck with that.

Maybe, maybe not. I fly with plenty of 60+ guys and they're all sharp and energetic. In my observation, the other guy's performance has more to do with whether he's on day 6, or just commuted in on the redeye from MIA, than his/her age.

Obviously age matters *eventually*, but the original age 60 rule was pure insider political dealing on the part of the AA CEO to solve a labor dispute.... by getting rid of the ringleaders :rolleyes: So not really any legit data behind that. So if we're going to go with data and science the first thing we need to do is eliminate all preconceived biases associated with any particular age and then let the chips fall where they may.

The only people who don’t like the 1500hr rule are the regionals and the pilots who don’t yet have 1500hrs.