FAA Rejects Airline Request To Cut 1,500-Hour Rule

Disappointing that the FAA did not approve a common sense initiative like this

If you don't lower the hours, or have Tom Cruise promote. Who's going to be a military aviator.
Everyone wants to fly those F-22 but ended up flying the KC-135 or the C-130. They save 750 hours because they get to fly analog and obsolete 707.

If you don't require the 1500 hours in a Cessna, who's going to buy the American built Cessna.
All those fly-by-wire and advanced avionics still needs an American made single engine dinosaur proficiency.

Just like my neighbor who had over 1500 hours in a sailboat and kayaked almost every weekend, he's ready to control a 200k GT container ship carrying 20k containers. Spot on FAA.

The Congressional response to the Colgan air crash in Buffalo (increasing the required hours to 1500 from 250) was ill advised and has created this crisis. The lowest cost I have found to obtain flight time is $85 per hour wet (with fuel). That puts the cost of obtaining the time required at over $120,000 and that does not include all the others costs necessary to become a pilot.

Additionally, a number of airlines are reporting the need to increase training time and intensity of the new pilots as many have developed bad habits in their never ending quest to obtain the necessary 1500 hours by whatever means possible. Much more difficult to break a habit established with 1500 hours of flying versus 250. These new candidates are simply building time however possible and not gaining as much valuable experience as one would hope.

There are pilots out there with 500 hours or less that are outstanding aviators and some with over 10,000 hours that are marginal at best. Flight experience is a reasonable factor when considering competence but should not be the only measurement. Determining the appropriate pilots to operate our airliners is a job that should be left to the operators and not by a government official with limited or no aviation experience.

The 1.500h requirement is pretty pointless. Looking at major European operators with a great safety record (Lufthansa, Eurowings, Swiss, Condor, Austrian, Brussels just to name a few), who succesfully employ cadet pilots with 170h ttl experience (the relevant kind of license is called MPL), it becomes obvious that there is no real benefit from flying 1.500h SEP when it comes to the requirements of operating a larger aircraft comercially.

Somehow I feel Congress is always ill advised.

It's a conspiracy to recruit more military aviators and sell more Cessna.

We really need a flowchart to explain when policies are racist/sexist/homophobic/generally -ist or -ism and when they aren't. It appears, much like Covid policy, that the Feds are making it up as they go.

I think Republic made the mistake of putting "more economical" and "relieve pilot shortage" in their argument. Yes, these points are true, but you're trying to sell this to the FAA. As I'm sure everyone's aware, the FAA has taken a lot of heat lately (i.e. the Max issue, etc.), so they are in uber safety mode. The last thing the FAA is going to do is put themselves in a position where they are or even appear to be compromising safety.

I read this Forbes article by Ben Baldanza stating that the 1500 hours rule has broken the pilot pipeline training
https://www.forbes.com/sites/benbaldanza/2022/07/11/the-1500-hour-rule-has-broken-the-pilot-pipeline-in-the-us/

The military requirement is an incentive to recruit and also a way to recoup some of that sunk investment by the taxpayer.

There is nothing common sense about this request, its a way to cut safety to save money. Airlines should ask
themselves why pilots DONT WANT to fly with them. instead of abusing them, they should take care of their staff.
Longer schedules, more flights per day, poor accommodation etc etc. More accidents are related to tired pilots, so it should be about what can we do to help alleviate these problems. Airlines have seen the results of Boeing management, walking away with $millions and no penalties, and realised, hey we are home free, whats the problem with killing a few more passengers and crew? its good for the bottom line. America is a business, not a country. iTS f.. the public -the dollar is king. Capitalism at its worse.

Congress initiated the 1500 hour rule because they felt they had to " Do something". Knee jerk reaction. Pilots of the Colgan crash had 1500 hours or more, didn't help them did it? The FAA and the industry has no data to confirm the 1500 hours contributes to more safety. The FAA screws over pilots again. Remember pilots the FAA is your enemy not your friend.

Just look other airlines with high record of safety and training , flying with copilot with less than 500 hours, but, experienced captain .
Airlines may also use retired captain for on the job training in the third seat.
But….. unions has much power to allow that.

Idea...they could let those of us who just became 65 and healthy keep working who have decades of experience...but nah..that makes too much sense.

The 1500 hour requirement was in fact an unnecessary knee jerk reaction by the Feds. So was the 4 year degree requirement recently dropped by Delta. Both Colgan pilots had more than 1500 hours so where is argument there? Prior reasonable hiring requirements worked for decades. Thousands of qualified pilots are being overlooked because of this ridiculous change. Add the required ATP requirement for the Type and it becomes even more ridiculous. Likely company bottom lines will dictate the necessary changes that should be made. One has to be very careful who they give a badge to!

If a Private Pilot had to rent a Cessna 172 at 160 dollars an hour that would cost upwards of 224,000 for 1400 hours (100 getting the PPL). I didn't add fuel either. This is ridiculous, and it's causing light aircraft to skyrocket in cost because no one can afford the rental, so they are buying up the light aircraft pushing everyone who used to be able to afford one out of the market, or go experimental.

This 1500 rule makes the pilot career near to impossible, I got my commercial pilot single-engine license, but had to stop training while I was working on my multi-engine rating because of the high cost of training, I was paying aprox $550.00 for just a 1 hour lesson, and aside from that there are no job opportunities for pilots like me to find a flying job and be able to gain experience to reach the 1,500 hour requirement, but anyways soon the airline industry will be reducing the cockpit to single pilot operation with just one pilot and eventually tecnology would take over the pilot career and pilots will be driving Uber.

The 1500 hour requirement is ridiculous for kids that graduated with a BS from flight programs like in ERAU and UND. They were held standards that don't exist in the Florida/Arizona flight schools. Furthermore, they graduated with a degree.

The 1500 hour requirements need to be enforced for non-college graduates. The Marvin Renslow and the Jesse Rhodes of the regionals need to be eliminated.

FAA knee jerk reaction to one accident and raising hours to 1500 hrs is bureaucracy at its best. Safety can ge achieved by allowing lower time pilots to fly as first officer only, but only when paired with a more senior captain.
Creating a rule that does more harm than good benefits nobody.
If a 1500 hrs pilot is involved in a similar accident, do we propose a minimum of 5,000hr requirement? And then 10,000?