How The [ATP] Rule Reduces Safety
 

Big claim from somebody who isn't a licensed pilot and has never been though a 121 training program.

Lol, the regionals aren't even hiring FOs anyways.

Don’t engage

Ugh. Another "1500 hour rule" critic. At least he could have called it out correctly. It's an ATP reg, specifically 121.436.

Well, that's just his (uninformed) opinion, man.

The non-pilot author should realize (and would if he had bothered to talk to any pilots) that a great deal of learning takes place during that 1,500 hours. Both from teaching and watching mistakes. Experience is the greatest instructor.

Weird how insurance rates decrease with hours. <-- free market at work, SonicFlyer.

But then again, he is "frequent traveler"-certified.

One way it has made us less safe is that the regionals have essentially hired anyone with a pulse over the last few years.

They might be hiring anyone with a pulse, but if you don't meet the standard you won't continue to be employed.

A long time ago, You flew as an FE and got a few years to see how the operation was run and how the plane was flown. Pretty good seat to see whats going on. Hard to say whats enough experience. If a person can fly the sim and meet the ATP requirements, but not the hours, is the 1,500hrs really a valid indication of ability?

There is not 1,500 hours requirement. The requirement isn't about hours, it's about holding an ATP certificate. An airline pilot, holding an airline pilot certificate. Novel idea.

1,500 hours is only one of the experience criteria for the ATP; it has never been a question of whether 1,500 hours is "enough," but of certification, and meeting a minimum certification standard.

For many years, a commercial pilot certificate was considered adequate, and there have been periods when airline pilots have been hired at the bare minimum value for the commercial certificate.

The commercial, however, does not require that an applicant perform to the same standard as the ATP.

A type rating does conform to the same standard as the ATP. Whereas in the past, new airline pilots were not necessarily type rated right away, and later the advent of the idiotic "SIC type" became chic for ICAO compliance, and the withholding of a "full ATP type" held some control by the employer over the employee (giving the employee a thing of value), today pilots train to the full type, to ATP standards, and they're expected to perform at that standard. The only pilot certificate that meets that standard, or requires it, is the ATP.