@angelorange
That is my point regarding the ineffectiveness of this new rule. Requiring FOs to have an ATP won't fix the issue of pilots gaining quality time. In the past you could get your ME commercial and head over to some small 135 operator or an airline like Great Lakes and work your way up there, if you survived you were deemed worthy to proceed to the heavier metal.
This ruling is eliminating the option of pilots to go to Great lakes, Gulfstream International, or any of the other small 19-seat operators. And quite frankly as far as 135 goes, there just aren't enough low-end piston/turboprop 135 operators to fill the need.
What will wind up happening is we'll have pilots grinding out 1500 hours in their Cessna 172 either on their dime or as an instructor. It's my opinion that sitting in the right seat managing a student is not sufficient experience to manage an airliner in all weather conditions.
Of our pilots at my current employer, the former CFI's often fail checks and if by the grace of God are able to make it through their initial training are the worst instrument pilots I've ever seen. Why? Because most are not CFII but only train in VMC. To put it in perspective in 2011 we hired 18 pilots and 12 with under 1500 houts TT, of those 12, 6 had come from being CFI at local flight schools, the rest were either FAR 135 pilots or came from other airlines. Of those 6 CFI's one passed and he has since failed his first PC and had to take two re-attempts as required by ALPA contract.
The fact is that 1500 hours does not guarantee that pilot will have sufficient instrument times to show real experience. It did remove an option for learning light FAR 121 operations with smaller aircraft. I don't know about you but my real learning on how to "manage" an aircraft versus how to "fly" an aircarft only began once I started flying in all-weather conditions during commercial operations. The things my captains taught me were what kept me alive in the years to come once I upgraded. This rule really hurts that process.
I would rather have an 800 hour pilot that spent the last 300 hours flying in hard weather at night in an MU-2 than a 1500 hour CFI that spent all his time training in VMC in a C-172.
If we must insist on going this route, then the FAA should consider raising the maximum passenger capacity of an aircraft for FAR 135 commuter operations back to 19 seats.
The more realistic option would have been a crackdown on airline training and checking procedures to weed out those that continually fail their checks.