Applying to the "career destination" airlines

TomcatG said:
So is the typical civilian applicant really between 25-35? Would civ applicants above 40 not have a decent shot at a major? I understand there are age discrimination laws, but if an applicant is above 40, would the chances of being hired be less? Thanks
Click to expand...

I was hired by a major at over the age of 40. Getting hired is Networking, Networking, being competitive, and a pinch of luck.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Sorry for bringing this thread back from the grave, but I was wondering when one should apply to the majors? I've been at the regionals less than a year so I know I won't be hired for a while but I've heard people say the amount of time your application has been in the system matters. If that's the case I don't mind paying the airlineapps annual fee, but if it's not then I'd just rather wait.
 
If you don't meet the minimums, you're not even going to show up during the download so I wouldn't worry about 'when'.

But, here's a little bit of semi-solicited advice. Apply and update it regularly. The airlines will decide when you're ready.

Something else, not specifically to your situation, but when you think you ARE ready, don't get a sense of entitlement about it. I can't tell you how many interactions my friend in recruitment has, on a semi-daily basis, of people with the "I have X hours, been in the system for Y years, you keep hiring everyone else but haven't called ME. WHY?"

Seriously.

Not "is there anything I can do to better or differently to highlight my qualifications and experiences", it's literally "WHY HAVEN'T YOU CALLED"/"what's the algorithm?"

Algorithm? Who is teaching that crap I wonder.

Don't develop a sense of entitlement you'll do fine.
 
For those intrested, AA is done with all the "recalls" and is now doing off the street hiring as well as their flow thru obligations. The seniorty list is complete and that uncertainty is over.
 
Derg said:
If you don't meet the minimums, you're not even going to show up during the download so I wouldn't worry about 'when'.

But, here's a little bit of semi-solicited advice. Apply and update it regularly. The airlines will decide when you're ready.

Something else, not specifically to your situation, but when you think you ARE ready, don't get a sense of entitlement about it. I can't tell you how many interactions my friend in recruitment has, on a semi-daily basis, of people with the "I have X hours, been in the system for Y years, you keep hiring everyone else but haven't called ME. WHY?"

Seriously.

Not "is there anything I can do to better or differently to highlight my qualifications and experiences", it's literally "WHY HAVEN'T YOU CALLED"/"what's the algorithm?"

Algorithm? Who is teaching that crap I wonder.

Don't develop a sense of entitlement you'll do fine.
Click to expand...

We engender a sense of entitlement by referring to (and treating) regional flying as "paying your dues."

If regionals were treated as a valid career and not just a stepping stone to the majors, you would see this less... but when the industry, as a whole, tells people "Do this, do this, do this, do this, and oh by the way, there's a pilot shortage and we'll need you as soon as you're done 'paying your dues' for pennies," and people do what they're told, and nobody calls them... they'll naturally begin to lose faith in the system. They might, in fact, come to downright resent it.

For my part, having no degree I fully expect to be a 'lifer' at my current regional. That shouldn't be a dirty word, but it is. Even saying that to people gets you 'the look.' The industry is bad. It's a bad industry. Squeeze the regionals all you like, but how profitable would the majors be without their cheap regional 'partner' B-scale?

Really, look at it from the point of view of someone who's chasing the dream—even I can do that—and picture the fellow who does everything right (except 'be born rich'):

(STORY TIME)

Your name is Josh Menkin, from Clausterville, GA, and the only thing you want to do in life is to fly for the airlines. You're not from a well-off family, but you know that you can't get a job at a major airline without a degree. So you worked your butt off to scrape together the cash you could, studying and working 70 hours a week... two years at a community college, three at a public university. You didn't really get to "chase girls" and party like all your friends did, but you lived frugally, drove a beater (which somehow managed to make it through without any catastrophic failures), and came out with only $40k in debt.

Whew!

You know that flight training will cost money, but having begun looking for work in your last year, you've discovered that your shiny new engineering degree barely entitles you to a job at starbucks. So you bust ass to do what you can to economize to add only minimal debt in pursuit of your certificates and ratings.

By some miracle, the mom-and-pop part 61 that people recommended on JetCareers stays in business throughout your training, and despite all the broken airplanes, scheduling difficulties, and the international students getting priority over you, you manage to get all your private, commercial, multi, instrument, and your CFI, in two and a half years, while working a full time job, and adding only $40k of debt. Your beater car is running on bald tires and the door is held on with a clothes hangar, and you're pudgy from a diet of ramen and work, but you've finally made it—you're a CFI!

That part 61 isn't doing so well, though. You can see that if you instruct for them it'll take five more years to get enough time to move on, by which point you'll owe more on your debt than you'll make. So you reluctantly pay for a subscription to "the orange site," and find a school teaching Chinese students out in California. It barely pays enough to survive, and you'll be working from before sunset to after sundown, but you know you'll build time fast. That debt is hanging over your head like a cloud, and it's already taking a chunk of your Starbucks salary, but you're optimistic and lucky, so you pack your jalopy full of your battered belongings and drive off into the sunset.

Seven months later, you've flown five hundred more hours, but you don't have any multi time. The school you're flying for gets busted by the department of labor for employing you as an independent contractor, and the school goes out of business the same day. The owner disappears, owing you two paychecks and one that was late.

Back to the orange site, you find a gig flying 135 canyon tours. It pays even less than the California gig, "But if you stick around for a few years, we'll let you fly our Navajo/Caravan/..."... besides which, the bank that loaned you your money has just called to inquire about your late payment, so you feel like you don't have much choice in the matter.

After a year at the tour gig, you've made enough in wages and tips to replace the tires on your car, pay rent, and keep your creditors happy with only the single 30-day delinquency... and that's about it. Every day you've showed up to work your balls off in the high, hot heat, sweating into a seat that's already accumulated two decades of sweat from poor schleps just like you, fighting finicky equipment, heavy loads, high density-altitude, and trying to stay legal-enough to protect literally everything you've been working for over the past nine years. You're almost 30, but you've got 1,478.2 hours, and an interview scheduled with a regional.

Six years later, you're at your second regional, making $45k/year in your third year, commuting (because you can't afford to live in base), and getting your butt kicked and flying 100 hours per month.
Your car finally broke down two years ago, and you had to pay to have it hauled off. With your ~600 credit score from that 30-day delinquency a few years back, you got a loan on a $6,000 civic which you hope to last you until you get to the majors.. though being a used car on a medium-risk loan, you're paying 12%+ interest (calculated by the rule of 78s, of course.) But it's ok, you have to get to work, after all, and you made it out with only one occurrence on your record. Minimum payment on your bills plus rent and monthly expenses are almost even with your income... perhaps even a tick in the black.

Your company has treated you like garbage—like a cross between a thief in the night and a tempermental child—and your debt has ballooned to proportions that make you nauseous to think about. But you've gotta "pay your dues", right? But it's ok, everyone tells you. Keep your head down, keep your nose clean, and you'll get to the majors. And you have! You haven't burned any bridges, you haven't ever spoken out of turn. You showed up on the off-days at the 135 to clean airplanes and scrub the hangar, as ordered, and you've basically done everything you've been told to do. You've got 7,000 hours, and you're nearing upgrade, though rumor has it that your regional is about to lose flying and close your base, and that upgrades will be held indefinitely.

Still, you've been dutifully updating your airlineapps a couple times a month, and you've kept that resume polished. It's on file with all the majors and LCCs. You've attended three career fairs a year (at your expense, of course) for the last three years, and been told "Keep doing what you're doing!". On Facebook, JetCareers, APC, etc, you see a steady stream of your friends and former coworkers—many of whom with less time than you—moving on to their dream jobs... you even see people fresh into the industry just floating through, seemingly right into the majors, and you start to wonder why.

Suddenly you start hearing people talking about how if you've been at a regional too long, you're not competitive. Your engineering degree wasn't from a top-tier school, and even though you completed it in five years, you're not "tier I". Now other voices, reasonable voices, chime in and say "Nah, forget all that. Just keep kicking butt and showing up, and good things will happen," but you're really starting to wonder.

You look at yourself, and it's kinda scary—You're single, approaching mid-30s, with gobs of experience, and you're sitting in the right seat at a regional as a senior FO. You've done faithfully done everything everyone-who-knows has told you to do, and you've tried to glean the best advice from all sources to do so. And yet you've still managed to accrue the sort of debt that only a job at a major airline can clear, and nobody seems to be calling.

You meet up with someone who you know has his finger on the pulse of major airline recruiting, and you're compelled to ask:
"I have X hours, been in the system for Y years, you keep hiring everyone else but haven't called ME. WHY?"
Click to expand...

(/STORY TIME)

I dunno. Even though I totally understand what you're saying—from my perspective—it seems logical to me that Josh Menkin might reach a point where he begins to doubt the "good faith" of a bad system.

Perhaps Josh Menkin is simply concerned that there seems to be some "secret sauce" that he's missing, despite being told time and time again that there isn't.

The trick is to realize just how much perspective can influence reality.

-Fox
 
Acrofox said:
We engender a sense of entitlement by referring to (and treating) regional flying as "paying your dues."

If regionals were treated as a valid career and not just a stepping stone to the majors, you would see this less... but when the industry, as a whole, tells people "Do this, do this, do this, do this, and oh by the way, there's a pilot shortage and we'll need you as soon as you're done 'paying your dues' for pennies," and people do what they're told, and nobody calls them... they'll naturally begin to lose faith in the system. They might, in fact, come to downright resent it.

For my part, having no degree I fully expect to be a 'lifer' at my current regional. That shouldn't be a dirty word, but it is. Even saying that to people gets you 'the look.' The industry is bad. It's a bad industry. Squeeze the regionals all you like, but how profitable would the majors be without their cheap regional 'partner' B-scale?

Really, look at it from the point of view of someone who's chasing the dream—even I can do that—and picture the fellow who does everything right (except 'be born rich'):

(STORY TIME)

Your name is Josh Menkin, from Clausterville, GA, and the only thing you want to do in life is to fly for the airlines. You're not from a well-off family, but you know that you can't get a job at a major airline without a degree. So you worked your butt off to scrape together the cash you could, studying and working 70 hours a week... two years at a community college, three at a public university. You didn't really get to "chase girls" and party like all your friends did, but you lived frugally, drove a beater (which somehow managed to make it through without any catastrophic failures), and came out with only $40k in debt.

Whew!

You know that flight training will cost money, but having begun looking for work in your last year, you've discovered that your shiny new engineering degree barely entitles you to a job at starbucks. So you bust ass to do what you can to economize to add only minimal debt in pursuit of your certificates and ratings.

By some miracle, the mom-and-pop part 61 that people recommended on JetCareers stays in business throughout your training, and despite all the broken airplanes, scheduling difficulties, and the international students getting priority over you, you manage to get all your private, commercial, multi, instrument, and your CFI, in two and a half years, while working a full time job, and adding only $40k of debt. Your beater car is running on bald tires and the door is held on with a clothes hangar, and you're pudgy from a diet of ramen and work, but you've finally made it—you're a CFI!

That part 61 isn't doing so well, though. You can see that if you instruct for them it'll take five more years to get enough time to move on, by which point you'll owe more on your debt than you'll make. So you reluctantly pay for a subscription to "the orange site," and find a school teaching Chinese students out in California. It barely pays enough to survive, and you'll be working from before sunset to after sundown, but you know you'll build time fast. That debt is hanging over your head like a cloud, and it's already taking a chunk of your Starbucks salary, but you're optimistic and lucky, so you pack your jalopy full of your battered belongings and drive off into the sunset.

Seven months later, you've flown five hundred more hours, but you don't have any multi time. The school you're flying for gets busted by the department of labor for employing you as an independent contractor, and the school goes out of business the same day. The owner disappears, owing you two paychecks and one that was late.

Back to the orange site, you find a gig flying 135 canyon tours. It pays even less than the California gig, "But if you stick around for a few years, we'll let you fly our Navajo/Caravan/..."... besides which, the bank that loaned you your money has just called to inquire about your late payment, so you feel like you don't have much choice in the matter.

After a year at the tour gig, you've made enough in wages and tips to replace the tires on your car, pay rent, and keep your creditors happy with only the single 30-day delinquency... and that's about it. Every day you've showed up to work your balls off in the high, hot heat, sweating into a seat that's already accumulated two decades of sweat from poor schleps just like you, fighting finicky equipment, heavy loads, high density-altitude, and trying to stay legal-enough to protect literally everything you've been working for over the past nine years. You're almost 30, but you've got 1,478.2 hours, and an interview scheduled with a regional.

Six years later, you're at your second regional, making $45k/year in your third year, commuting (because you can't afford to live in base), and getting your butt kicked and flying 100 hours per month.
Your car finally broke down two years ago, and you had to pay to have it hauled off. With your ~600 credit score from that 30-day delinquency a few years back, you got a loan on a $6,000 civic which you hope to last you until you get to the majors.. though being a used car on a medium-risk loan, you're paying 12%+ interest (calculated by the rule of 78s, of course.) But it's ok, you have to get to work, after all, and you made it out with only one occurrence on your record. Minimum payment on your bills plus rent and monthly expenses are almost even with your income... perhaps even a tick in the black.

Your company has treated you like garbage—like a cross between a thief in the night and a tempermental child—and your debt has ballooned to proportions that make you nauseous to think about. But you've gotta "pay your dues", right? But it's ok, everyone tells you. Keep your head down, keep your nose clean, and you'll get to the majors. And you have! You haven't burned any bridges, you haven't ever spoken out of turn. You showed up on the off-days at the 135 to clean airplanes and scrub the hangar, as ordered, and you've basically done everything you've been told to do. You've got 7,000 hours, and you're nearing upgrade, though rumor has it that your regional is about to lose flying and close your base, and that upgrades will be held indefinitely.

Still, you've been dutifully updating your airlineapps a couple times a month, and you've kept that resume polished. It's on file with all the majors and LCCs. You've attended three career fairs a year (at your expense, of course) for the last three years, and been told "Keep doing what you're doing!". On Facebook, JetCareers, APC, etc, you see a steady stream of your friends and former coworkers—many of whom with less time than you—moving on to their dream jobs... you even see people fresh into the industry just floating through, seemingly right into the majors, and you start to wonder why.

Suddenly you start hearing people talking about how if you've been at a regional too long, you're not competitive. Your engineering degree wasn't from a top-tier school, and even though you completed it in five years, you're not "tier I". Now other voices, reasonable voices, chime in and say "Nah, forget all that. Just keep kicking butt and showing up, and good things will happen," but you're really starting to wonder.

You look at yourself, and it's kinda scary—You're single, approaching mid-30s, with gobs of experience, and you're sitting in the right seat at a regional as a senior FO. You've done faithfully done everything everyone-who-knows has told you to do, and you've tried to glean the best advice from all sources to do so. And yet you've still managed to accrue the sort of debt that only a job at a major airline can clear, and nobody seems to be calling.

You meet up with someone who you know has his finger on the pulse of major airline recruiting, and you're compelled to ask:


(/STORY TIME)

I dunno. Even though I totally understand what you're saying—from my perspective—it seems logical to me that Josh Menkin might reach a point where he begins to doubt the "good faith" of a bad system.

Perhaps Josh Menkin is simply concerned that there seems to be some "secret sauce" that he's missing, despite being told time and time again that there isn't.

The trick is to realize just how much perspective can influence reality.

-Fox
Click to expand...

Well written, insightful and poignant, even to someone outside the industry. I hope it engenders reflection and thoughtful conversation for those of you within.
 
Trust me, I "get" it.

My friend mentions that there is always more to the story.

It may be frustration and just getting lost in the system, but 90% of the time that instead of taking the opportunity on the jumpseat to ask about the system or reach out and ask for help, it's spent complaining about "the system" and "Why did you hire my FO but never even interviewed ME?"

Dig a little deeper and often times, there is something they're not revealing about their story. It happens all the time. Not saying all of them, but some of the people calling for a riot at pilot recruitment offices nationwide are not disclosing everything that may be holding them back.

I understand the frustration. I've forwarded things I've learned from talking to you guys to my friend the recruiter and there are positive changes coming to the system.

My advice would be to delete the word (and expectations relating to) "shortage" from your vocabulary, immediately. Find five success-oriented people and stay in real-world professional contact with them. Filter out the negative folks because if you really want to get forward, think, "Ain't nobody got time fo dat" because you don't. Seriously.

I have never met a "lifer" who has made finding a career job his "full time job" and failed. Never in almost 20 years of running Jetcareers.
 
I do too.

He just got hired at delta two months ago. He went from high school to aviation college degree to Great Lakes, Spirit, and is now at delta at 25, and will hit that 12 year cap at 37. No jet PIC
 
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