"John Gaquin" wrote in message
...
Pete, IMO you've misinterpreted the sentence structure.

Could be. Consider, however...

* At best, the wording is ambiguous and without some other FAA reference,
either interpretation could be correct

* There's no official FAA "in air transportation service" rating or
endorsement. There is no prohibition against ANY pilot giving any other
pilot instruction in any manner of topics, even those related to flying and
operations. The flight instructor privileges are required for situations
where the FAA requires a certain amount and/or kind of instruction. So it
begs the question, if all that the FAA is allowing an ATP to do is to "teach
the ropes" to new airline crew, why do they need the regulation at all?
It's not like the ATP pilot would have been prohibited from doing exactly
that in any case.

[...] One gray area we always used to debate as CFIs was
whether an ATP without a CFI can give training to another pilot who is not
employed in air transportation in preparation for that pilot's ATP
checkride.

Well, that seems to be the whole point. Right? Whatever the conclusion, it
would illustrate the correct interpretation of 61.167. If the ATP without a
CFI can give such training, then the regulation is parsed as you suggest.
If the ATP without a CFI may not give such training, then the regulation is
parsed as I suggest.

Of course, even with that illustration, there would still be open questions.
But it seems like that illustration does exactly show the ambiguity.

Regardless, I think the original poster obviously has a more correct answer
than his "buds".

Pete