Lobbying to roll back 1500 hr rule:
 

Is there any value in removing or reducing the 1,000hrs of 121 time requirement instead? By the time I'm eligible to upgrade, I'll have nearly 5,000hrs tt. How many people are in my situation, or is it not enough to make a significant difference?

Yeah. Right now the biggest constraint is getting the SIC hours needed to upgrade in the regionals. Not enough CAs sticking around long enough to furnish the FOs with the SIC they need to upgrade.


Anyone remember where the 1000 hr requirement came from? Most study derived numbers don’t end in three zeroes. That’s more the number you get when you pull it from some administrator or politicians orifice.

That’s probably just rounding but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

the 1498.666666 hour rule just doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well.

Any talk about reducing the SIC rule from 1000 to something less?

Not taking a stand one way or the other. Just asking the question?

The threat to airlines are lines and waiting.

The 1500 hour rule for ATPs isn't really 1500 hrs. It's 1500/1250/1000/750 hrs, depending on how you accumulated your hours.
Plus, you can get the restricted ATP at age 21.

Are they trying to roll FO minimums back to Commercial license?

Up the retirement age to 67 and overnight there’s a to year buffer to sort out the pilot shortage and doesn’t require changes to flight time minimums.

Nope. It might or might not help - what really got things this bad this quick was most legacies offered ng anyone 62-65 (and SWA down to the 50s) early retirement in 2020. They wound up retiring everyone who turned 65 that year and a whole bunch who didn’t. Then when flying picked up quickly and somewhat unexpectedly, they were about 5000 major airline pilots down from 2019 levels and they are surging trying to catch up to only “normal” levels of retirements (which were already going to require hiring a tremendous number.

The guys (and gals) who left you are not going to get back. They are either drinking Margueritas on a beach somewhere or have already found a job flying a Pilatus or Bizjet for someone. At 65, a lot of their pilot brethren will join them - far more than would keep flying until 67. And your chances of changing the federal law in the five months run up to an election are pretty near nil anyway.

When many EAS routes stop getting serviced there's going to be a lot of unhappy politicians. For those familiar with flight training, wouldn't cutting the 1500 hours to a lower number decimate the CFI ranks? Just robbing Peter to pay Paul? Age 65 wouldn't do much as already posted above, but the 1000 hour rule would be the most effective I'd guess. I'd also guess the FAA will push back hard on that thou.