Knowing that makes you ahead of the game. At least you are aware of how little you know at this stage of the game. It looks like the regional will be the training ground for most of you getting on with low time anyway.

I seriously doubt the 1500 rule will come out intact with all the lobbysts at the capitol hill trying to water it down. So you have nothing to worry about. Regionals will still hire pilots with less than 400 hours. They already are.

Well and I'm not willing to sign a contract just so I can get a job I'm not qualified for. I can wait a year or two until I have the right experience for the job. While I understand the desire to get in at the earliest time possible, I want to make sure I'm ready to fly through the training (no pun intended).

My outlook is a little different than some maybe because I'm not in my twenties.

You'd be surprised how many hours most of us had before we fly 121 jet aircraft.

Recently, now and back in 2006-2008, they were hiring low timers... Prior to that you'd have to go back to the 60's to find similar hiring.

Most all of us came to 121 with a 2-4 thousand hours and our ATP's.... And that was for the first job flying a 1900.

Now we have to listen to whiners cry about how hard it is to get 800-100....before they can go straight into a jet.

Give us a friggin break will ya.

There were thousands of sub-1000hr pilots hired by numerous regional airlines in the late 90s right up to September 10th, 2001.

You are closer than you realize. An open mind and a desire to learn are 90% of this business. And the lack of these things, along with a sense of entilement, are what alarms us old farts.

Airmanship is universal. Sharpen your skills and hone them. They transfer well. Like the tail dragger pilot taking a 747 into PIK. Dig deep, and be quick to learn from others. That is what this job is about.

There are a thousand pilots at Comair that would probably leave tomorrow if they didn't have to go back to $21,000 a year. All of them have ATP mins.

Make a better offer and the pilots will beat a path to your airline...

Absolutely. I will take a bet from anybody on this. There will be very few who can't slide through with one exemption or another. My post from another thread:

I expect any number of the following to continue bid-nes as usual:

1. College training exemptions, lead by ERAU, UND, et al.

2. Military trained exemptions

3. Airline sponsored training exemptions

4. Ab initio program exemptions

5. Multi-Pilot License exemptions

6. "Emergency" exemptions when airlines scream they have to cancel flights since they can't find any more kids who are qualified and want to work for $20k.

In 2008 Comair actually tried implementing a signing bonus. Delta had just awarded the Freedom planes to Comair and we couldn't get enough qualified applicants (this is right before Delta redirected the planes to other DCI carriers and Comair began to furlough).

I do not know the official story, but word on the street is that ALPA essentially said "no signing bonus unless current pilots get something too" so 2stage is right on the money.

I imagine all rates would have to get a bump for newhire pay to become attractive enough to lure pilots from other, stale regionals.

Maybe after 99', but not before - unlesss you wrote out a check for $8-12K. I worked at a large flight school in CA 98-2000'. The only ones that got hired below 1000tt, and there were only two out of 40 or so instructors, bought their jobs at COEX and ASA. One guy was at 900/300 and the other just at 1000/200. Out of the 40 or so instructors that were there, most didn't get hired until they had at least 1200tt, and we all had several hundred multi at that time.