Originally Posted by AirRabbit
There is little doubt there ARE these folks out there - and they would likely make for excellent airline entry first officers ... but are there enough of them to supply 400 pilots a month, every month, for 12 years? And that figure is just for the US ... Europe is likely to require somethig similiar - and the Pacific Rim ... at least the same ... perhaps more. And IF (you make the call) those numbers cannot be supplied by whatever source you name, from where are those pilots going to come?
I'd be careful of forecasts. The market is flooded with experienced pilots, and yet every year since 2001, the upturn has been forecasted as being upon us. I have little doubt that the industry will have it's pilots and then some. In the case that it doesn't, then the industry will have to entice people into the flightdeck through selection processes, sponsorship or decent salaries. This will see the return of skill being the selection criteria.
Maybe the MPL is a satisfactory way of filling the shortfall, should there be one. My point was purely to contest the frequently presented scenario of the only alternative to the MPL being a 1000 hour FI bashing out circuits in a C172 whilst trying to move on - a view that you also seem to favour.
Originally Posted by AirRabbit
...but I’ve seen more than my fair share who take an instructor’s job simply to log the flight time – which can mount up fairly quickly, leaving a relatively inexperienced pilot with an ATP.
You need multi-crew time for the JAR ATPL, which negates this.