[Joeaksa]

The experience level in the left seat so far is still fairly good but difficult times are coming.

About 10-15 years ago all this "lets hire minorities" crap came into effect. United (the worst), Delta and so on jumped on the band-wagon and if you were female or any minority and could identify an airplane on the ramp, you were hired. All of those guys with 2-10,000 hours already under their belt who also applied for a job were told to go away that their years of experience were not needed.

Well kids, these "new hires" have little if any "time in command" in the left seat of a transport catagory airplane and its about time for them to "assume the left seat" due to their senority numbers. When this happens (its prolly started happening already) the airlines are really going to have their hands full as now they get to find a whole bunch of really experienced copilots to "baby-sit" these new Captains who have never been in charge of an airplane, especially a big one full of 200 passengers.

Flying through bad or difficult weather, winter weather ops and so on are going to get worse with these "newly minted Captains" sitting in the left seat and in control of your life during the flight.

Personally I try to fly on SouthWest or American as they are the two that I know of who did not jump on the "lets hire minorities" bandwagon as strongly as the other airlines.