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Lakes Air ends service to EAS communities
Great Lakes Air blames new qualifications for flight crews in the ending of service to five small towns in Iowa, Minnesota, and Michigan. In Mason City alone, 50% of the schedule had been cancelled for various reasons in the last few months, some days resulting in no air service at all. Will this loss of service be repeated elsewhere as Regionals face the loss of experienced crew members? (globegazette.com) Mehr...
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I'm not saying that we compromise safety in any way, but I think lower F/O requirements at the regional level wouldn't be a terrible thing. You gotta start somewhere. Flight instructing just isn't getting it anymore. There are creative ways to get to 1500, but not for everyone. Of course, I guess some people could argue that the world needs ditch diggers too, but...:/
We keep asking for more government and we keep getting it.
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"Great Lakes had 304 pilots a year ago. Today it has 98."
Starting pilot salaries need to go up. But even then, there may still not be enough pilots.
The new 1500 hour requirement was aimed at regionals. But regional airlines may need an experience step at a point below that for the msjors, maybe 1000 hours might be a better compromise (at least for the first officers).
Having the pilots getting those last 500 hours as an apprenticeship at regionals may make them better pilots, than 500 more hours just pulling banners.