The bill also would permit the 2013 boarding figures to remain the qualifying standard for several years to come, buying time for the airports to work out new service solutions while, hoping against hope, that the FAA regulation which is causing this calamity might be re-examined and modified, or even repealed.

This is the start. Wait until they try to sneak it into legislation later this year.

1500 hr rule was not typical knee jerk reaction either. The families of Colgan victims lobbied hard and hounded congressmen to pass that bill. They also continue to put pressure on those who would renege--unlike ALPA.

Yes. The colgan families are not going to just let this go, and neither are they going to forget.

Riiiiiight because we need another reason to keep Great Mistakes alive.

Dude don't be dragging politics into this.

Go post over in JetCareers if you want to get into a left vs right scuffle. They're all about that.

This is true. It was one thing to take out a loan you never intended to pay back (most of the DCI Academy, Gulfstream pilots). Now banks don't give loans as easily for flight training. The money has to come from somewhere. It's a lot harder to make the dumb investment when the bank forces the pilot in training to come up with the money some other way.

Don't discount one huge pot of money for flight training. Tons of ex mil use GI bills to finance flight training while getting degrees. I know one particular university whose flight program was majority ex mil using GI bills and foreign students whose government footed the bill. Not very many average Joe Schmoe college kids whose parents were paying for everything. Most of those guys quit after they realized it was not fun having to work somewhat hard to get ratings at an astronomical cost, with a dismal ROI, and having to take classes at the same time. Don't know if that is representative of the larger aviation university population or not.

On a related note, perhaps someone should fill them in on how the FAA is permitting companies to use disciplinary action against pilots who refuse 2 hour 117 extensions. Sadly, they might be more effective than the unions.

When I got the GI bill, it was $18000, about half what a Comm MEL ticket cost, and it didnt cover anything until one got his private. Maybe things are different now, but for me, the GI bill assisted me getting my tickets; I still had to come up with the other half plus room, board, etc.

(That $18,000 worked out to about 3k per year of service: not exactly a windfall.)

Montgomery GI Bill is a different story. If you use the post 9/11 GI bill, you can use it for straight up flight training at a 141 school, for all ratings after the PPL. That's capped at $10k per year and not a good use of a GI Bill.

What I saw people doing is going to an aviation university, pursuing a professional pilot degree, and getting both tuition and flight labs paid for, in full, and receiving BAH at the e5 rate on top of that, and a book stipend. The "flight training" costs are part of the degree and not considered vocational, so there is no cap other than the cost of what is in the syllabus. That, my friend, is a windfall, depending on how they set it up. You can make it several hundred thousand dollars if you are efficient and go to a yellow ribbon school. If you already have a degree, and you enroll to get another bachelors in the professional pilot program and take nothing but flight labs, you don't burn much GI bill and they pay a lot for the few credit hours you take. I still have plenty of GI Bill left over to go get an MBA when this aviation career craps on me. And I still have over $50k in my flight account I have to give back to the VA bc my ratings were add-ons and I already had a lot of time, so I ripped thru them and didn't use that much. I could have got sea plane, glider/airplane/helo CFI and ATP, a bunch of joyrides, all paid for by the GI bill, and still would have had enough for a 2 year MBA. There are definitely better ways to use it now than when you did it, but it took some digging and a lucky assignment near one of these schools fornme to find out its true potential.