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Looks Like 1500 Hours May Become the New Hiring Minimum Among Other Things:

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Sedona16

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Dec 5, 2001
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Congress to toughen airline standardsPosted 1h 17m ago​


By Alan Levin, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Safety standards for airlines and pilots would be dramatically toughened in legislation scheduled to be introduced Wednesday in Congress.
Prompted by the crash last February near Buffalo that has raised questions about pilot qualifications, training and fatigue, the "Airline Safety and Pilot Training Improvement Act of 2009" aims to find the most successful safety programs and mandate them for all airlines, said Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Ill., chairman of the House Aviation Subcommittee.
MORE:NTSB plan aims to shield planes from bird risks

The bill would add tough new certification requirements for entry-level commercial pilots, require additional emergency training, improve availability of pilot records and mandate stricter rules to minimize pilot fatigue.
"Our bill is a serious effort to consolidate what we know industry-wide about aviation safety to improve safety performance going forward," Costello said in a statement.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Federal Aviation Administration | National Transportation Safety Board | Air Transport Association
The bill would:

Require that all airline pilots obtain an Airline Transport Pilot license, which is currently only needed by captains. Pilots must have a minimum of 1,500 flight hours to obtain the license. Co-pilots may now be hired at airlines with as little as about 200 hours, though most begin airline work with more experience. This is good for all active pilots. Its that whole supply and demand thing and this gives a couple points to the pilots in that battle.


• Mandate that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) within 90 days set up a new database of pilot records so that airlines will have access to more information before they hire someone for the cockpit. The captain of the jet that crashed near Buffalo had failed several FAA-mandated tests of his piloting skills, but his airline did not know about all of them when it hired him.


• Direct the FAA within one year to rewrite the rules for how long pilots can work. Several attempts to rewrite the rules to make piloting less prone to fatigue have failed in recent decades. FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt also has vowed to update the rules.

• Require airlines and travel websites when they sell tickets to disclose the name of the carrier operating the flight. About half of all flights are operated by regional airlines working under contract to major carriers, but those regionals almost never sell tickets directly to passengers. Most of the regional flights are flown with the name of the major carrier painted on their aircraft. Delta and the rest of the gang who have been pushing for so called "seamless code sharing" aka farming to the regionals probably wont like this one. Maybe with the negative perception of regionals right now this will further influence the powers that be to bring more flying back to mainline. Well its a nice thought anyway.

• Set up numerous studies and task forces to examine how best to train pilots, minimize pilot fatigue and run a safe airline.

The Air Transport Association, which represents large carriers, issued a statement saying that it would prefer that current efforts to improve safety begun earlier this year by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood be allowed to work before Congress passes legislation.
"We believe in that process, and we believe it should be allowed to proceed to a successful conclusion," said ATA President James May.
HA HA anybody surprised by this?


The crash Feb. 12 of a Colgan Air turboprop, which killed 50 people, has raised numerous safety issues. A National Transportation Safety Board investigation has found that neither pilot may have gotten a full night's sleep. The pilots also reacted improperly to an emergency, raising questions about how well they were trained.








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this is stupid because no one is hiring. Go back and fire everyone with less 1500 hours.....

another waste of money making a law that will do nothing.
 
• Require airlines and travel websites when they sell tickets to disclose the name of the carrier operating the flight. About half of all flights are operated by regional airlines working under contract to major carriers, but those regionals almost never sell tickets directly to passengers. Most of the regional flights are flown with the name of the major carrier painted on their aircraft.

I'd have gone a step further and requir airlines to operate under their own name. No more "Connection" or "Express" unless that is the name of the airline.
 
There will be hiring when the new rest rules take effect.


I think that there will be alot of that going around. Then plan on alot of JA flying when they can't fill seats at the regional level! Love this industry
 
I'd have gone a step further and requir airlines to operate under their own name. No more "Connection" or "Express" unless that is the name of the airline.
An unbeleiveably simple answer to this whole mess! Stop letting airlines masquarade as someone else!
 
Require that all airline pilots obtain an Airline Transport Pilot license, which is currently only needed by captains. Pilots must have a minimum of 1,500 flight hours to obtain the license. Co-pilots may now be hired at airlines with as little as about 200 hours, though most begin airline work with more experience. This is good for all active pilots. Its that whole supply and demand thing and this gives a couple points to the pilots in that battle.
Glad to see that what I've been preaching for over HALF A DECADE is finally being seriously looked at.

I agree, once the guys currently on the street get jobs and there is a need for new pilots, this is going to seriously become a problem for air carriers. Why? Pretty simple: the many small charter companies where many pilots built their time are either out of business or seriously down-sized. Check running has become almost a thing of the past, as has ad-hoc freight with almost everything being shipped in from overseas. With the fewer jobs and reduced operations resulting in slower time-building, fewer and fewer pilots will be able to build enough time to obtain the ATP rating fast enough to keep the flood of available applicants to the airlines.

Now we just have to make sure we guard against a MPL or increased foreign pilots or airlines flying our routes, and we should have some leverage moving forward...

• Require airlines and travel websites when they sell tickets to disclose the name of the carrier operating the flight. About half of all flights are operated by regional airlines working under contract to major carriers, but those regionals almost never sell tickets directly to passengers. Most of the regional flights are flown with the name of the major carrier painted on their aircraft. Delta and the rest of the gang who have been pushing for so called "seamless code sharing" aka farming to the regionals probably wont like this one. Maybe with the negative perception of regionals right now this will further influence the powers that be to bring more flying back to mainline. Well its a nice thought anyway.
Yeah, nice thought, but people will STILL buy the lowest-priced ticket, regardless of who operates the flight.

this is stupid because no one is hiring. Go back and fire everyone with less 1500 hours.....

another waste of money making a law that will do nothing.
Almost NO ONE in the 121 world has less than 1,500 hours now. The last big hiring with 500 hours total time was almost 2 years ago. Flying 600-800 hours a year (conservatively) means it's unlikely there's more than a handful of sub-1,500 hour pilots anywhere in the 121 world now.

Most of us disagree with you that this law will "do nothing". Put the law into effect and give it 4-5 years and you'll see a large change. With fewer and fewer pilots interested because of slave wages at regionals and now a requirement for an ATP before you can get hired there, you'll see an even larger decrease of new pilot entrants into the field, and the trickle-down effect once the age-65 pilots retire and the furloughees are hired, things will start getting tight.

Case in point? Almost every regional would have been unable to fill classes the last 3 years of hiring before this recession if the ATP would have been required. Be patient, you'll see...
 
Up to a year to re-write rest regs? A year is a long time; I can't help but wonder what the various airline management groups would do during that time to weaken the fatigue rules.
 
Now we just have to make sure we guard against a MPL or increased foreign pilots or airlines flying our routes, and we should have some leverage moving forward...

This is the proverbial hole in the dike, and everybody had better line up to stick their fingers into it. At the first sign of hiring distress you can count on the RAA and ATA to cry their eyes out to congress and the FAA to let them relax cabotage and right to work restrictions and push for MPL. This is the line that can't be crossed to ensure the last little bit of dignity this career still contains doesn't swirl the bowl.
 

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