NPRM results released?
 

The comment period ended a couple months ago, but does anyone know when they will release their amended (if any) ruling for HR5900? Does anyone care to speculate what it will entail? Grandfather, pushed back implementation, lower TT req's, higher TT req's (no exemption) etc, etc? My crystal ball is broken. :D

Talking with a lot of buddies at various regionals and it seems their airlines have good plans in place to get the current pilot group all to ATP/1500 hrs before next August, but many have plans to hire (Skywest, Expressjet, Republic) and they are finding it harder and harder to find people with the times now, so they are wondering where the people with the 1500/ATP will be then. Just observations from others.

Any thoughts?

That's probably because people with an ATP don't want to take a pay cut.

I believe congress did an end run on the FAA. It is a hard and fast date, no extensions or exceptions. Have the ATP by August 2013, or you can't be an airline pilot anymore.

Surely with enough money and a little nudging Congress can budge. I mean, they've never done THAT before. :D

Are you suggesting money and power might influence a politician? Say it aint' so!

Oh never! They are the definition of integrity. :D

Not this time, the majors don't care and the regionals can't afford to buy congress.

The majors will start to care when half their flights (which are 'regional' flights) can't operate anymore at the current pace because the regionals can't staff their airlines.

I'm not against the ATP thing but this could have some unintended consequences. It's not like people are just going to go out and buy 1500 hours of time and the appropriate amount of M/E time to get an ATP and there aren't really enough of the right kind of jobs to build that time with either. There may be enough folks out there floating around right now but in a couple years it could be very, very difficult to find adequate numbers of pilots. That's when the majors will start to care.

And just maybe that will be the reason they will pull more of the flying in-house, and hire from the EXPERIENCED regional ranks to fill those seats.

And that's all good but the total number of qualified pilots is going to become an issue when the retirements start hitting hard in 12 months.

Hiring at majors or contract 'regional' carriers isn't the issue. There will be an issue finding enough bodies starting in about a year or two regardless of what kind of airline it is.

We'll see. I hate to use the word "shortage" because everyone knows how that works but the current system will not produce nearly as many ATP qualified pilots as the number of pilots reaching retirement starting this december. The majors can cherry pick from the regionals but the regionals will have no pool of qualified, legal pilots.

I see a problem starting in about 18 months.