what if people stopped taking jobs at regionals?

[Meatservo]

You don't need a 1500 hour pilot. In Europe they've got 250 hour pilots flying Airbuses.
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Yeah, but they don't let them land.

Riiiiiight. There might be the odd exception, but in Europe FOs actually do land the plane. They are even allowed to touch the controls. They can even talk to the captain if they disagree with him. Like in a real multi crew environment. Amaaaaazing, isn't it?

Oh. I wasn't aware you'd been working as an airline pilot in Europe. Well, you can fool the fans, but you can't fool the players, I guess.

[ajet32]

Well I have worked and trained pilots with 250 hours in Europe and Asia. Do they make every landing, no. They land when conditions are suitable which is most of the time. The system in Europe and Asia exists because there is really no commercial General Aviation similar to that in Canada. The majors train select pilots and the rest fork out a 100,000 Euros or more and get a seat. The accident rate in Europe isn't any better or worse than ours. One problem is they learn by rote and do it the same every time they fly. This makes it rather boring but that's life.

[Eric Janson]

Yeah, but they don't let them land. It depends what you mean by "flying". The European carriers are running into the same trouble promoting these skill-less wieners to Captain that Jazz is going to very soon.

As previously stated this is incorrect. I have extensive experience flying with 250 hour F/O in both Europe and Asia.

We normally split the sectors 50/50.

My 19 year old F/O on the 757 was extremely sharp - you only had to show him once.

I've never had to take control and I've never had a "Dual Input" event on the fly by wire airbus.

[av8ts]

I've heard the cadet training programs in Europe are far more extensive than in Canada. They even include jet time. Any truth to this? If so then all "250 hour wonders" are not created equal

[Cat Driver]

When I was flying in Europe the cost to get trained to fly a jet was about 120,000 Euro.

That was in 2005.

[confusedalot]

Well I have worked and trained pilots with 250 hours in Europe and Asia. Do they make every landing, no. They land when conditions are suitable which is most of the time. The system in Europe and Asia exists because there is really no commercial General Aviation similar to that in Canada. The majors train select pilots and the rest fork out a 100,000 Euros or more and get a seat. The accident rate in Europe isn't any better or worse than ours. One problem is they learn by rote and do it the same every time they fly. This makes it rather boring but that's life.

The comment is spot on, they do in fact learn by rote and, since experience is lacking, rely on stiff SOP's. Any curve balls get thrown, well, that's what the Captain is there for. The Captains, in my experience anyway, do have at least 3000 or 4000 hours, so at least there is some experience in the cockpit to figure out any slightly odd situation that flies over the head of the cadets.

The cadet system works at the end of the day, I suspect however that the minimum 1500 ATPL requirement to be a PIC is the safety net that will not change anytime soon.

To answer the initial question, all the regionals will do in a crunch is start cadet programs. Recall however, that even here in Canada, the majors were in fact fulfilling regional flying before the concept of splitting them off to contractors became the vogue in the mid 80's. Big red even used to hire barely qualified people in the 60's when no pilots were to be found. It's all supply and demand.