Originally Posted by
ViPER_81
Black belt, would you at least concede that the GA industry in Australia is just not big enough to provide the amount of pilots needed by the Australian Airlines.
So whats the solution to that problem?
I disagree with that, there are plenty of pilots out there who have 3000+ hours plus 500 multi who can't crack an airline job. Notice how the smaller companies are still asking for 500+ multi just for a chance to fly their 30 year old king air (or even chieftain in some cases)...this suggests that there is no shortage of qualified pilots out there if they can ask for those sorts of minimums for a shot at GA twin.
In any case, even if there was a shortage of pilots with the above requirements, wouldn't it make sense for an airline to start hiring pilots with 700 piston single time rather than 200 hours of piston single?
It still makes no sense in Australia to offer ab initio cadetships because there are thousands of CPLs around the place and probably hundreds who already meet the current direct entry minimums.
If they wanted to crew their aircraft faster, they could offer accelerated cadetships to those with 500-1000 hours of piston single who could complete a course in 3-6 months rather than a full ab inito course taking 12+ months.