Lets be honest, most passengers dont want to get on a plane and see a 22 year old pilot in either the left or right hand seat of a 737.
And with regards to how I started this whole thread, any ideas when we are nearing the end of an abundance of type rated guys anybody!! Im actually job hunting and trying to get bonded to some airline/corporate/cargo company... need to pay the bills.
So where DOES the public expect to see a 22 year old in one of the seats up front?
That is probably the question to ask, and when you have the answer, then you know where you need to go to get a gig (if you're 22 years old).
And if you're older, and just starting, you have to realize that flight experience wise, you're basically the same, and so you have to start at one of those jobs.
From what I can tell, those are the small cargo ops, the small pax ops - Cessna 210's 206's, maybe a caravan - then after you've got a couple years experience doing that you can move up to the smaller regionals - ie. cape air, and then with a few more years you move on to something bigger. If that's the case, there aren't a whole lot of type ratings required before the first 5 or 6 years are done.
I am finding that there is a difference between types of experience too.
For example, if you've got a few thousand hours experience flying the family, that's one kind, but flying the line is different, and it's not about the "flying" as much as working within an organization in the difference between the family and the line.
It would seem to me that companies are also going to see cargo flying differntly from pax flying. One's usually all night flying for example.