I manage a Part 135 operation. After the 1500 hour/ATP requirement for Part 121 came in I have found that I cannot find qualified pilots. I used to get applications around 3 a week from qualified people now I get none. I had a bunch of full time pilots but now I rely on part timers because I lost all my good guys to the majors and freight carriers. I do part time flight instructing and no longer have anybody wanting to learn to fly to be a commercial pilot.
I believe that it is now impossible to fail a check ride in the airlines because there are no replacements available. I have seen some of the smaller airlines upgrading their guys to command with as little as 1800 hours. Pilots are flying longer hours with fewer days off because there are not enough to man the number of airplanes the carriers want to fly, many airplanes are being put out to pasture because of a lack of pilots and many airports are shutting down because of the drop in frequency of airplane movements required to get the FAA subsidy.
The military does not release many pilots any longer, they have cut back their own training and pay bonuses to keep the ones they have.
They say that the problem was the Colgan accident, which was not caused by low time pilots without ATPs but by pilots who were fatigued and did not follow the correct stall procedures. The PIC was reported to have failed several check rides. The 1500 hour rule does nothing to fix these problems, in fact it makes them worse.
As a confirmed conspiracy theorist I believe that the FAA has knowingly done this to kill aviation in the USA. Maybe they all want to retire on full pensions.
Consider a youngster who wants a career as an airline pilot. She must get a degree first, so that will take 4 years. She is now 22. Then she has to get 1500 hours. How to do that? Be a CFI? Fly the Geico banner? Work in the bush flying a PA28? How long to get 1500 hours? 7 years? 10?
So at a minimum age of 32 she is now qualified to knock on the door of the airline and apply for a job that pays $20,000 to $30,000 a year and with loans around $500,000.
Nobody would ever see that as a reasonable course and they are proving it by staying away from aviation. The only training going on in the USA is for the foreign airlines, who will continue to put those pilots into the right seats of their 777 and 747s with 400 hours total. And compete with the US carriers.
Even if they increase the retiring age to 70 it will not solve the problem of attrition, it will only delay it. We are becoming quite good at kicking the can down the road.