How The 1,500 Hour Rule To Become A Commercial Pilot Compromises Safety

by Gary Leff on June 7, 2023

After the Colgan Air crash in 2009, Congress was looking to take action on aviation safety. ALPA, the largest pilot union, was ready with items from its legislative agenda that it had been pushing for years. They won the ‘1,500 hour’ rule, flight time required before a pilot could be hired as a first officer at a commercial airline.
This was adopted even though both Colgan Air pilots had.. more than 1,500 hours. The rule wasn’t meant to prevent future Colgan Air disasters. It was meant to make it harder to become a pilot.

• Restricting the supply of pilots increases the bargaining power of pilots. A pilot shortage drives up pilot wages.
  
• When United Airlines faced a pilot strike in 1985 they started hiring replacement pilots. That’s simply not possible today, a huge victory for unions.
  
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However the 1,500 hour rule reduces safety it doesn’t increase it. (HT: @kcreedy)

• These are unstructured hours.
• Pilots go through training on commercial procedures and on non-normal operations
• Then they spend perhaps a year and a half flying single engine planes in good weather building up hours.
• They aren’t dealing with stalls, storms, de-icing, or numerous other problems that you want a pilot to be experienced in.

The 1,500 hour rule leads to less well-trained, less-experienced pilots not more experienced pilots. They get hired by commercial airlines and go through remedial training to fix the bad habits they get into building up hours for hours’ sake.
According to the FAA the 1,500 hour rule does not promote safety.

Read the rest of the article here.

Further Reading

Mesa Airlines Launches New Time Building Program for Aspiring Pilots: The regional carrier is aiming to offer pilots a more streamlined approach to building flight time.