There's a slight cross of threads here. In JAA land there is talk of going from zero to full type rating in 1 go. The days of 250hrs single spam-can flying including 50hrs VFR navigation etc., and for the lucky ones 2 hrs aeros, the 50hrs airways training have long gone. It's now reduced to 150hrs total. G/H must have suffered. The talk is for an MPA type rating with much conducted in a sim. Do I hear 'cost recuduction' as the driving force. The supporters of the scheme would say that if you want an airline pilot then train an airline pilot, not a crop sprayer. However, if you want an air-taxi pilot or a quality GA pilot, anything from a Beech KingAir to a GV or any golbal biz-jet, how do you train and licence them? They live in a different world requiring different skills. I wonder if the various CEO's sitting in the back of their private golbal flying gin-palaces realise how low the total time of many of their pilots is.
You talk of cockpit experience. If you have been trained properly, and fly in a solid airline with a quality training culture, then the modern button pushing FMC will generally do the job you were trained for. the cadets are efficient, keen and become very competant quickly, especially in the density of modern short-haul multisector flying day. Long-haul cadets are a different story. My experience of the quality cadets is they are fine everyday nothing goes wrong pilots. A straight forward standard day is a breeze.
However, you are now getting captains of 300ohrs, only seen 1 airline, 1 type of operation and perhaps had little go wrong in their apprenticeship. In the LoCo's there are no station managers and engineers at every destination to make 'those' decisions. The captain is there and it's his call. Is 4 years exposure enough?
15 years ago the norm in charter was 5000hrs or 4000hrs 6 years in the company and an above average continual performance. That would generally have had 7000hrs total cockpit hrs as a minimum. The flying world is more congested; the commercial/time pressures are more; the airfields often flown to are less euquiped (although the Greek islands of 20 years ago were pretty spartan). But the cadets are used to ATC, Radar, ILS's etc. Some of the more out of the way places are a handfull when left to do it on your own. TOTAL cockpit time can now be as little as 4000hrs on type with TOTAL company experience 4 years. Is there enough experience to make those decisions when needed? Is there enough experience to resist the bullying of so many outside influences? Is there always the experience there in the RHS to ask their opinion when meeting a new dilema.
Total hrs to fly a jet is not such a big deal, but total experience to be a captain in todays world is another question.
To echo a previous writer; I was flying regularly over the Alps in winter from N.Europe to land in N.Italy. Nice big shiny jet up above the weather with all the grunt needed to rise above most challenges. We had a minimum of 6000hrs in the cockpit. I jump-seated once on a Saab 340 MXP to BSL, in summer. Beautiful. We talked about the winter. MSA 16000' on special routes; PNR's; engine out escape routes between various wpt's. etc. etc. A whole other world and somewhat scary. I've also been over some mountians in a PA-31 and only just being able to maintain cruise speed at clb power due ice build up. Losing a donk was not an option. These guys had turbo-props; a real confidence booster, but still their SE ceiling was below MORA. They had to do a lot of pre-flight planning depending on Wx. and then in-flight monitoring was never ending. Total cockpit time was 3000hrs. Captains were 2500 total. The oldest person in the crew was the senior cabin crew of 2.
The same must be true of some operations around the highlands & islands. The lowest experience is flying in the most dangerous conditions with the most under-powered a/c. Market forces dictated that, but the operators of big shiny jets could perhaps do more. Some will say markets forces will apply there also. Cheaper pay yourself training, lower salaries and attract the low experience and promise them the holy grail; a shiny jet and possible command beore they're 30. Perhaps the FAA are waking up. I would have thought it was the insurance companies who would have more of a say. Should they have allowed 5000hrs to be reduced to 3000hrs?
Horses for courses, perhaps.