I think ATP mins and the written is fair. Regionals are looking to hire future captains who usually wind up upgrading pretty rapidly. FWIW, I was hired at Mesaba with 700tt and 60 ME. That is above our hiring mins. Most of my flight time prior to CFI'ing was training for ratings and renting. I instructed for 10 months before getting hired. I now have about 1580tt and 890 ME. I don't think too many guys are scared to fly with me or ever were.

 

I was hired with 1100tt 250ish ME, and 400 turbine. I think a solid number for regionals would be 2000tt 150me/ or some type of turbine time to supplement light twin time. Also, probably be good to have ANY 135 or 121 experience under your belt if its 135 it should be as PIC.
For The guys who are CFI'ing you can fill in the holes in the 135 outfits once those guy's move up and out. The reasoning is this: its totally different teaching turns around a point or S-turns compared to shooting IFR approaches to mins single pilot at night with no autopilot. Just my .02

 

that is exactly the problem

 

With your logic we should still be flying planes with radial engines, and conventional gear.

Boeing 247s for all!

 

Honestly I disagree. I believe that when hiring picks up we will see 500 hr pilots getting hired again. You have to remember that flight training dropped off dramatically, either due to gloomy outlook on the future as a pilot and/or peoples' loans were literally cancelled during flight training. You can't get money from sally may these days. With that said, hiring mins always reflect availabilty of workers. After the furloughed pilots come back or get other jobs there will be lack of pilots (specially those with turbine time) . Therefore the mins will plummet once again.

 

I agree that the CFI to regional FO transition is going to happen less frequently. Its going to be CFI -> 135 freight -> regional FO for the next few years. When that pool starts to dry up (5-10 years) then it will probably revert back to CFI to regional FO.

I know personally that will probably be my plan as i don't see a Comair recall occuring anytime within the next three years. I got hired with 620TT and 50 ME. Following furlough (10/08) I returned to CFIing and am very hesitant to leave for anyone without 135 mins this time. Currently at 890TT and 127ME. The big issue is ME time. I agree with another poster talking about a lack of ME students. I'm trying to network with as many people with twins here to let me fly or act as safety pilot, but that is slow going.

As for the original poster to the question I feel ATP mins with 300ME isn't out of line. But hiring mins will always be subject to what the market will bare.

 

Those "1994" style jobs still exist.

 

Was on with my second airline by 802 TT...TSA at 400 with a wet commercial, and SkW shortly thereafter at 800. And I can tell you with 110% certainty that I did not belong flying a Jet at Trans States with that level of experience...neither did my classmates. But I didn't know any better (I did accept their job offer after all, didn't I?!).

I'm with y'all that hiring will not be what it has been recently again for a long time. Expect at the very minimum 1000 hours for consideration. And that is most certainly a good thing. Now I'm kicking myself for not experiencing more in the way of non-121 flying before I signed my life away to the seniority system!

 

1000/100 B.S. in aviation

 

B.S. can stand for more than just a degree