Well said, FlyJSH. This has been a heated debate for quite some time with Congress passing that bill requiring all Part 121 pilots to have 1,500 hrs of flight experience (effective August 2013 I think?). It's nearly impossible to guarantee the quality of someone's piloting skills simply because the bottom right column in their logbook adds up to a certain number. I could be an amazing pilot with 500 hrs and not make the grade because my time doesn't meet the requirement. On the other hand, I could have 2,500 hrs and not be capable of flying straight and level.

There are exceptions but the 2500 hour pilot is going to do a much better job than the 500 hour pilot. Yes there are exceptions but when you put a 500 hour pilot in the right seat of a regional it burdens the Captain to now have to babby sit and play flight instructor for the entire trip.

Sheesh. Poor English is poor.

Absolutely. If the 500 hr pilot has 100 right-seat King Air time, he/she may be more qualified/skilled than the 2,500 hr pilot with only single-engine piston time flying solo going low and slow. But you're correct, the vast majority of the time the pilot with more time will be the more skilled of the two. Babysitting or CFI'ing in that kind of an operation is definitely uncalled for and then we need to wonder how that FO slipped through the cracks to get to that point.

It would be nice if the minimums help us get paid more like professionals. That is going to be the biggest gain.

I am curious what is to happen to the separate seniority lists after the merger. Is pinnacle/mesaba going to share one list and allow pilots to cross from one company to the other to go from saab to q400 to crj or are the mesaba turboprops and pinnacle jet fleets going to keep their own pilot groups? Im sure this has been covered before but I couldn't find the answer and was curious. Thanks!

All three lists are being merged into one as we speak. Pilots will be able to bid between different equipment, bases, and airlines. The time frame is unknown as the arbitrator has yet to release the integrated seniority list and I don't know if there will be fences or when one would be able to jump to the other side.

I'm glad we're going with one list to eliminate the whipsawing but we're all pretty anxious to see where we'll fall in the new Pinacolsaba.

I'm guessing about the same day as brand scope happens, (never.)

Not to be outline of line here but who was playing flight instructor when your airline landed a wide body on an Atlanta taxi way?

And not to be a slave to statistics, but on average who do you think makes a STATISCALLY higher number of mistakes per flight hour that might lead to an incident or accident? The 500 HR or 2500 HR pilot?
I'm not sure that I have EVER anyone's post (that at least has a sliver of credibility) that suggested that even high time airlines pilots are immune to making mistakes :rolleyes:

USMCFLYR

PS - the question above already has a statistical answer that most on this forum will know.
But we all know about statistics right?