gregtryin wrote:
The looming pilot shortage is very real.
While I no longer fly professionally, and will agree that there will probably be a shortfall of 'qualified' pilots for the majors/nationals, this pilot shortage adage has repeated itself about every 10-12 years or so. It was constantly in the aviation print media when I was hired on as a fledgling first officer with American Eagle in 1996 where, despite having several thousand more flight hours than every other pilot in my new hire class, I was still at the bottom of a seniority list that forecast a 10-12 year wait for upgrade to captain. While I got to fly over 900-hours, I had no weekends or holidays off that first year, and because my pay at Eagle was nearly half my NCO pay in the US Army, I ended up working two-three jobs, thus ensuring no days off that first year!
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As a result, the FAA raised the minimum flight time to 1,500 hours before a pilot could be eligible for an Airline Transport Rating (ATP).
Its actually a lot more complicated than that - see CFR
§61.160 Aeronautical experience—airplane category restricted privileges (b) - as a side note, when I had to have obtained 1500 flight hours when I took my ATP checkride in 1996.
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An ATP is required for flying for any Part 135 operation which is the subpart all airlines that carry passengers operate under as well as freight carriers
To log pilot-in-command time under part 121 (scheduled operations/airlines) requires an ATP, whereas log pilot-in-command time under operations conducted under part 135 - roughly covers on-demand flight operations such as charters, air ambulance, and air tour operations - only requires a commercial pilot certificate.
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Lots of people on the thread have suggested automation will replace pilots.
Not anytime soon. While the major airlines provide service to the big airports with category III approach and instrument landing system (ILS), most regional air carrier operations are to smaller, less sophisticated airports where a basic ILS is sometimes not even available. Interesting fact to keep in mind, the Asiana Airlines 777 that crashed at San Francisco International on a clear day with unlimited visibility, a couple years ago, the ILS was noticed as out of service as the system that transmitted the glide-slope (vertical guidance) was undergoing maintenance at the time of the accident.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯