"But I've got a flow...?"

[milksheikh]

I'm the opposite. I'm currently about 220 numbers from flowing at PDT. Because of this I'm not super excited about paying for job fairs. With the amount of hiring, I'm content with either waiting to flow in 3 years at captain pay, or getting a call straight from airline apps. My goal was mainline by 30 years old. So we shall see

Doesn't PDT only flow 4 per month to AA? Not to be nitpicky, but wouldn't that be roughly 4.5 years? Unless you are taking into account people staying at the top or going elsewhere.. Would the 5 year mark for a new hire to flow to AA still be accurate as of today? barring any 9/11, recession, etc.. much appreciated.

 

[JetDoc]

Gutsy move, Mav.

However, the box of broken toys that hold the impression that "Well, they HAVE to hire me one day, they won't have a choice" they will be in for a very unpleasant suprise.

My friend, it has already been established that I am unhireable at the mainline level because of my community college education, A&P license and nearly 20 years experience maintaining part 121 jets, despite the fact that my education and experience is 100 times more applicable to piloting a jet than someone with a communications degree. I get it. I am fully aware of my of reality and have accepted it. I don't have the degree and therefore I do not deserve to make the money. I still am entitled to an opinion though (a 4 year degree is not required to have one of those as far as I know) and even a blind man can see that the the application numbers that are thrown are round are artificially high. It is this arrogance that amuses me. In the meantime, I will graciously welcome mainline pilots to my jumpseat and their families in the back when it's time to go to Disneyland.

 

[Flyjustin]

Doesn't PDT only flow 4 per month to AA? Not to be nitpicky, but wouldn't that be roughly 4.5 years? Unless you are taking into account people staying at the top or going elsewhere.. Would the 5 year mark for a new hire to flow to AA still be accurate as of today? barring any 9/11, recession, etc.. much appreciated.

We're currently at 4/mo on track for the 5/mo to begin in May. With zero attrition that's like 4 years. BUT like every airline we have attrition. I'm figuring about 4 years total for me at PDT. New hires will flow in 5- 5.5 years. We should be at 6/mo by Christmas 2017.

 

[jtrain609]

Doesn't PDT only flow 4 per month to AA? Not to be nitpicky, but wouldn't that be roughly 4.5 years? Unless you are taking into account people staying at the top or going elsewhere.. Would the 5 year mark for a new hire to flow to AA still be accurate as of today? barring any 9/11, recession, etc.. much appreciated.

I'm coming up on ten years at the regionals, so this doesn't sound so bad.

 

[GypsyPilot]

One thing is for certain, barring a black swan event, the movement in the industry will look drastically than the lost decade. The competitive barriers to major airlines are starting to drop. Even United is planning to hire 1500 hour pilots who instruct at Lufthansa's Ab Initio Flight School for 18 months. Unless you have significant red ink in your ledger, everyone will make it.

As far as the flow, barring a black swan event it looks like a solid path to a major airline job. I definitely wouldn't sit back and relax on it unless my sole desire/dream was to fly for AA

I keep hearing this, yet I can't get called by anybody despite having zero checkride failures, 4 year engineering degree with honors, multiple internals at every legacy, recommendations from every employer I've ever worked at (including management at my airline), 4 year engineering degree with honors, volunteer with two different organizations, multiple job fair attendance, and a current 121 regional PIC.

For whatever reason, legacies are not interested in 30-40 somethings like myself. There are a lot of us out here that aren't getting calls, while 20 somethings that soloed a few years ago are bragging about their Delta class dates. It's pretty frustrating when I can't even get a chance at an interview.

 

[derg]

My friend, it has already been established that I am unhireable at the mainline level because of my community college education, A&P license and nearly 20 years experience maintaining part 121 jets, despite the fact that my education and experience is 100 times more applicable to piloting a jet than someone with a communications degree. I get it. I am fully aware of my of reality and have accepted it. I don't have the degree and therefore I do not deserve to make the money. I still am entitled to an opinion though (a 4 year degree is not required to have one of those as far as I know) and even a blind man can see that the the application numbers that are thrown are round are artificially high. It is this arrogance that amuses me. In the meantime, I will graciously welcome mainline pilots to my jumpseat and their families in the back when it's time to go to Disneyland.

Because recruiters sit around devising methods of making things harder.

The problem doesn't lie with an airline's minimums, the challenge is that your competition meets those requirements and depending on the application system a company uses, you literally aren't even seen.

If I'm applying for Arizona Airways, and they require 5 hours of Space Shuttle time, even Chuck Yeager wouldn't electronically exist, but all of the former mission commanders would.

I'm reporting. Only. I'm heavily indifferent to the efficacy of the system because no one has asked my opinion.

 

[Maximilian_Jenius]

I keep hearing this, yet I can't get called by anybody despite having zero checkride failures, 4 year engineering degree with honors, multiple internals at every legacy, recommendations from every employer I've ever worked at (including management at my airline), 4 year engineering degree with honors, volunteer with two different organizations, multiple job fair attendance, and a current 121 regional PIC.

For whatever reason, legacies are not interested in 30-40 somethings like myself. There are a lot of us out here that aren't getting calls, while 20 somethings that soloed a few years ago are bragging about their Delta class dates. It's pretty frustrating when I can't even get a chance at an interview.

I'd think airlines would be hiring 30-40 yr olds more regularly. Less time at the top of the pay scale before mandatory retirement for the 30-40 yr olds. Versus the twenty somethings with a 35 year career ahead of them.

 

[Hacker15e]

I'd think airlines would be hiring 30-40 yr olds more regularly. Less time at the top of the pay scale before mandatory retirement for the 30-40 yr olds. Versus the twenty somethings with a 35 year career ahead of them.

Birthdate or age does not appear on AirlineApps or any of the 121 flavors of PilotCredentials, so the airlines wouldn't know unless they wanted to look at high school and college matriculation dates and make some heavy assumptions.

 

[Cloud Surfer]

They are hiring many military aviators at UAL and DAL who are well above thirty, so age is not an excuse. They have also hired 33 year olds from the civilian side recently. If someone is not getting a call, it is most likely for whatever other unknown metric that their algorithms espouse.

 

[CatchyScreenName]

Doesn't PDT only flow 4 per month to AA? Not to be nitpicky, but wouldn't that be roughly 4.5 years? Unless you are taking into account people staying at the top or going elsewhere.. Would the 5 year mark for a new hire to flow to AA still be accurate as of today? barring any 9/11, recession, etc.. much appreciated.

Its about impossible to give an accurate flow number from what I can ascertain. Too many unknown factors. I know a lot of recent new hires are older, GA background, 91/135 background. So they either won't want to give up their Regional Captain with a good schedule to sit reserve the last two years of their career at a major, some people just won't like the Regional life and go back to 91/135 especially since 91/135 are stepping up pay now too, some people will medical out, some people will get involved in training or chief pilot's office or recruiting or something where they can knock down good pay working basically 9 - 5 and lastly if I remember right just because you have a flow doesn't mean you are eligible to flow (again if I remember correctly, I vaguely remember reading in the contract that you can't have any training failures, etc, etc <-glad to be proven wrong on that...) then you got other outside attrition like people getting impatient for a job at the majors and taking a ULCC position, etc, etc, etc

 

[learhawkerbe400]

My friend, it has already been established that I am unhireable at the mainline level because of my community college education, A&P license and nearly 20 years experience maintaining part 121 jets, despite the fact that my education and experience is 100 times more applicable to piloting a jet than someone with a communications degree. I get it. I am fully aware of my of reality and have accepted it. I don't have the degree and therefore I do not deserve to make the money. I still am entitled to an opinion though (a 4 year degree is not required to have one of those as far as I know) and even a blind man can see that the the application numbers that are thrown are round are artificially high. It is this arrogance that amuses me. In the meantime, I will graciously welcome mainline pilots to my jumpseat and their families in the back when it's time to go to Disneyland.

Why not jut finish the degree?

 

[GypsyPilot]

They are hiring many military aviators at UAL and DAL who are well above thirty, so age is not an excuse. They have also hired 33 year olds from the civilian side recently. If someone is not getting a call, it is most likely for whatever other unknown metric that their algorithms espouse.

I just wish I knew what the heck I could do to change whatever "metric" is holding me back. I've had several professional app reviews, job fair prep, and so on. The feedback from that and job fairs is that "everything looks great!", you'll get called!

Yet I am not getting called. I know I have a good background that should set me apart from the typical RJ candidate, so I don't know what the heck to think. It's extremely frustrating to try this hard to move on with zero results.

 

[Hacker15e]

It's extremely frustrating to try this hard to move on with zero results.

Although I sympathize, do you think you're the only one who is asking themselves these questions and feeling this frustration? I've seen you post a number of times expressing similar sentiment, and I'm left with the feeling that you have a bit of a blind spot with respect to your situation being pretty typical.

I know a lot -- a lot -- of highly qualified people of both civilian and military backgrounds in the same boat as you. I don't know your exact resume data, but many of the people I am referring to have superb resumes; the military guys were Commanders, evaluators, instructors, and the regional/civilian guys are LCAs, chief pilots, etc....and they've had applications out there for in some cases two or more years with all these quals on them.

There is an intersection here of two things that are both out of your control and out of your ability to observe:

- Airlines have unknown and transient qualifications that they're using to call for interviews and hire (note the posts this morning from @Derg in another threadregarding how one Legacy seems to have changed its own process within the last 12 months).

- You don't really know what other guys who've been hired actually have on their resumes. I've shared my resume, and offered to critique/review resumes of several pilots who are trying to get hired at my current shop. I've been surprised more than a few times by qualifications/accomplishments/awards these people had that I never knew about. In some cases, these were people I'd known for years, and whom I'd thought I knew their quals...but they had things in there that made them more (and sometimes less...) qualified than I thought they were. Other people have said the same thing upon seeing my resume, too. Sometimes the game people verbally told me about themselves wildly understated (or overstated) how they looked on paper. So, I've learned that you can't really effectively yardstick yourself against someone unless you've actually seen their app/resume.

 

[Trip7]

I just wish I knew what the heck I could do to change whatever "metric" is holding me back. I've had several professional app reviews, job fair prep, and so on. The feedback from that and job fairs is that "everything looks great!", you'll get called!

Yet I am not getting called. I know I have a good background that should set me apart from the typical RJ candidate, so I don't know what the heck to think. It's extremely frustrating to try this hard to move on with zero results.

Sounds like it's a matter of when not if you'll get a call. I think it's highly likely you get a call from somewhere in 2017.

 

[jtrain609]

Sounds like it's a matter of when not if you'll get a call. I think it's highly likely you get a call from somewhere in 2017.

Unless the economy tanks, or age 67 happens, or if if if if if.

Some of us won't make it to the big leagues. Some of us will make it so late to the party that we'll never upgrade. Life will not be fair to all of us.

Have some sympathy for those who end up on the wrong end of the hiring wave, because it could have just as easily been you.

I try to be optimistic about how much hiring is going on right now, but not everyone is going to be a winner, sometimes through no fault of their own.

 

[MikeD]

If I'm applying for Arizona Airways, and they require 5 hours of Space Shuttle time, even Chuck Yeager wouldn't electronically exist, but all of the former mission commanders would.

I'm reporting. Only. I'm heavily indifferent to the efficacy of the system because no one has asked my opinion.

What is your opinion about the efficacy of the system?

 

[derg]

What is your opinion about the efficacy of the system?

With the shear volume of applicants, spots to fill and the weird blend of qualitative and quantitative aspects of an applicant, I can see it.

If you're simply looking at five individuals to fill one spot, you have the time resources to call all three in, maybe a group lunch. Play golf with one another individually, cocktails, a couple bounces in the simulator and make a full assessment of if any of them would be a great match for your company.

However, when you have about a 12:1 qualified (as per the stated requirements) applicant to job requirement ratio, reducing the discriminators to bring that to 25:1 is really quite opposite of what an HR department would be interested in.

Think about USAF OCS. You have to have a degree, have aptitude, pass some boards, be selected and get through UPT. Everyone wants to fly fighter jets so imagine if the Air Force said, "Nevermind the degree, it's useless, nevermind some of the non-aviation aptitude testing and looked at the applicant pool, they'd probably panic.

These are things that are decided well above my pay grade and I see a European-style ab initio program way before the top airlines start large scale reductions in their expectations.

 

[jtrain609]

These are things that are decided well above my pay grade and I see a European-style ab initio program way before the top airlines start large scale reductions in their expectations.

Kids, read this. Then read it three more times. Nobody NEEDS us, and when you're talking about protecting a brand it's easier to swallow $150,000 in training costs per pilot than it is to have a bunch of unqualified guys in the seats.

Not everyone is going to win, and if you haven't figured it out yet, I have a feeling life has some hard lessons in store for you.

 

[MikeD]

With the shear volume of applicants, spots to fill and the weird blend of qualitative and quantitative aspects of an applicant, I can see it.

If you're simply looking at five individuals to fill one spot, you have the time resources to call all three in, maybe a group lunch. Play golf with one another individually, cocktails, a couple bounces in the simulator and make a full assessment of if any of them would be a great match for your company.

However, when you have about a 12:1 qualified (as per the stated requirements) applicant to job requirement ratio, reducing the discriminators to bring that to 25:1 is really quite opposite of what an HR department would be interested in.

Think about USAF OCS. You have to have a degree, have aptitude, pass some boards, be selected and get through UPT. Everyone wants to fly fighter jets so imagine if the Air Force said, "Nevermind the degree, it's useless, nevermind some of the non-aviation aptitude testing and looked at the applicant pool, they'd probably panic.

These are things that are decided well above my pay grade and I see a European-style ab initio program way before the top airlines start large scale reductions in their expectations.

Interesting stuff. And it makes sense, what they have to deal with when it comes to the sheer amount of applicants who for the most part are relatively equally qualified.

The bold part is indeed interesting too....regarding ab initio.

Delta Connection Academy reborn...

 

[Eagle421flyer]

Unless the economy tanks, or age 67 happens, or if if if if if.

Some of us won't make it to the big leagues. Some of us will make it so late to the party that we'll never upgrade. Life will not be fair to all of us.

Have some sympathy for those who end up on the wrong end of the hiring wave, because it could have just as easily been you.

I try to be optimistic about how much hiring is going on right now, but not everyone is going to be a winner, sometimes through no fault of their own.

I can't agree with this enough.


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