I was the most junior in my class at 30. Top guy was pushing 50. Had several UAL furloughs and ATA pilots in class, with several XJT CAs and checkairman as well. There wasn't a single person that didn't have captain time at their previous airline or military gig. I had about 5k with nearly 3k jetpic and was middle to lower end of the pack for flight time experience. Didn't know a soul at CAL and wasn't an intern. Hell, I'm even WHITE.. how, oh how did I sneak through? Got lucky, I guess.
luckytohaveajob, you're doing an excellent job at trolling the waters here and have collected a lot of fish in your net, but to say that vast majority of pilots getting hired here are daddy's kids or otherwise not qualified is simply not true. There are a few people that came with minimal flight experience (minimal being 2000hrs or so of time), but those are few and far between.
Goggles, you've asked the million dollar question. Getting hired tomorrow, one would not have the same "quick upgrade" that's supposed to happen over the next couple years. It will still be fairly quick, assuming retirements (age 65) and 5-7% growth with orders, but it won't be as fast as the first 1000 or so hired since early '05. Retirements are around 200/yr through 2016 and tapers to 150/yr to 2024. Those are rough numbers, though, and do not account for age 65, early outs, retirements, deaths, jail, terminations, etc.. Gives you an idea, though.
I was hired in late 05 and can, in theory, hold EWR 737 CA in Nov-Dec of 08.