Some pointers from a friend that worked WAI

Derg said:
We'd probably still be sitting there with 160 people waiting to board because no one actually, you know, took the initiative to roll the passenger off the airplane.

I will do my best to make the Faceweb rage today with righteous indignation. :)
Click to expand...
Speaking of which.... visibility is up, people are loaded... Just waiting on rampers...
 
PhilosopherPilot said:
I disagree. Your ability as a pilot is FAR more than ability to keep the dirty side down. If you are a total jerk, you are unsafe. Well rounded people are going to be more flexible in various work situations, and better equipped to adapt to a dynamic environment. If all you ever focus on is flying, you're missing the point.

BTW, the "sweet spot" in our training program seems to be about 2000 hours. Training performance begins to suffer as flight time increases. Do with that what you will.
Click to expand...

What defines your "sweet spot"? Passing a checkride? Hours of IOE? What kind of backgrounds do your > 2000 hours pilots in training have?

2000 really isn't a lot of experience, IMHO. I think people can fly a plane fairly decently by then, but they don't necessarily have the big picture. Heck, as a ~ 6000 hour pilot I feel like I'm just starting to get a clue after flying as a 121 PIC for 18 months.
 
GypsyPilot said:
What defines your "sweet spot"? Passing a checkride? Hours of IOE? What kind of backgrounds do your > 2000 hours pilots in training have?

2000 really isn't a lot of experience, IMHO. I think people can fly a plane fairly decently by then, but they don't necessarily have the big picture. Heck, as a ~ 6000 hour pilot I feel like I'm just starting to get a clue after flying as a 121 PIC for 18 months.
Click to expand...

I think it's completely dependent on the person. We've all instructed guys with 100 hours you wouldn't sign off for a private and guys who could pass a commercial check ride with 40 hours. Same applies at the airline level. Some guys are just sharper than others.
 
PhilosopherPilot said:
I disagree. Your ability as a pilot is FAR more than ability to keep the dirty side down. If you are a total jerk, you are unsafe. Well rounded people are going to be more flexible in various work situations, and better equipped to adapt to a dynamic environment. If all you ever focus on is flying, you're missing the point.

BTW, the "sweet spot" in our training program seems to be about 2000 hours. Training performance begins to suffer as flight time increases. Do with that what you will.
Click to expand...

Can you elaborate on that some more...

Are we talking NH's, recurrent, or everyone? (FO's - Captains?)
Is it 2000TT, 2000 ME, 2000 Multi-Crew Jet? 121 PIC #'s thrown in there...
Is there an age factor, background, etc. component you can point to in the data?
Does this track over the life of the AQP program - or is there a yearly component that you can point to. (correlating it with overall industry hiring) 2016 vs. 2014 vs. 2011 vs. 2008 vs. 2003 pilots for instance?

Also, is this just based on the avg. scores of the training events... the 1-5 for each training event?
And... if you take out all of the 'automation' training events (FMS/programming/etc.) - and just focus on training events that are straight 'pilot skills' - MV's or approaches, or something like that - do the #'s stay the same?

And, of course, there is the point that the schoolhouse is not the line and the pressures/challenges that you need to be "flexible in a dynamic environment" about the are not able to be replicated in a true realistic fashion.

Of course, you don't have to go over it point by point... I'm just throwing some stuff our there. I'm aso not trying to argue... I'm legitimately curious how the data is derived. I might just ask you again when I'm down at the schoolhouse in a few months for recurrent.

I guess what I am saying is correlation is not causation. (And that's is a pretty blanket statement of experience...)
 
ClearedForOption said:
Can you elaborate on that some more...

Are we talking NH's, recurrent, or everyone? (FO's - Captains?)
Is it 2000TT, 2000 ME, 2000 Multi-Crew Jet? 121 PIC #'s thrown in there...
Is there an age factor, background, etc. component you can point to in the data?
Does this track over the life of the AQP program - or is there a yearly component that you can point to. (correlating it with overall industry hiring) 2016 vs. 2014 vs. 2011 vs. 2008 vs. 2003 pilots for instance?

Also, is this just based on the avg. scores of the training events... the 1-5 for each training event?
And... if you take out all of the 'automation' training events (FMS/programming/etc.) - and just focus on training events that are straight 'pilot skills' - MV's or approaches, or something like that - do the #'s stay the same?

And, of course, there is the point that the schoolhouse is not the line and the pressures/challenges that you need to be "flexible in a dynamic environment" about the are not able to be replicated in a true realistic fashion.

Of course, you don't have to go over it point by point... I'm just throwing some stuff our there. I'm aso not trying to argue... I'm legitimately curious how the data is derived. I might just ask you again when I'm down at the schoolhouse in a few months for recurrent.

I guess what I am saying is correlation is not causation. (And that's is a pretty blanket statement of experience...)
Click to expand...

I'm not on a computer, so I can't write a long post. But in a nutshell, I'm talking about new hire (QT) training.

Age plays a factor. Background plays a factor. Total time plays a factor. The guys who breeze through training (no repeated lessons or training review boards) are young, from a regional, on the lower side of the total time. Military guys and corporate guys repeat lessons frequently, and that's no surprise given our program.

I don't have access to the charts, but it's pretty interesting when presented. This doesn't mean that an older guy is a worse pilot, or that a high time guy isn't awesome once he gets out on line. It just means that they are at a higher risk of washing out of our program.

I'm not sure what the stats are for CQT. But I do know the incidence of a failure in recurrent is very low. Like sub 1%.
 
PhilosopherPilot said:
I'm not on a computer, so I can't write a long post. But in a nutshell, I'm talking about new hire (QT) training.

Age plays a factor. Background plays a factor. Total time plays a factor. The guys who breeze through training (no repeated lessons or training review boards) are young, from a regional, on the lower side of the total time. Military guys and corporate guys repeat lessons frequently, and that's no surprise given our program.

I don't have access to the charts, but it's pretty interesting when presented. This doesn't mean that an older guy is a worse pilot, or that a high time guy isn't awesome once he gets out on line. It just means that they are at a higher risk of washing out of our program.

I'm not sure what the stats are for CQT. But I do know the incidence of a failure in recurrent is very low. Like sub 1%.
Click to expand...

The corporate guys don't surprise me. Having been one myself previously, the skillset amongst that group is highly variable, ranging from excellent to so awful they'd NEVER pass a 121 initial course. I'm not surprised you see more consistency with folks that have 121 backgrounds, if I'm interpreting your reply correctly.
 
GypsyPilot said:
The corporate guys don't surprise me. Having been one myself previously, the skillset amongst that group is highly variable, ranging from excellent to so awful they'd NEVER pass a 121 initial course. I'm not surprised you see more consistency with folks that have 121 backgrounds, if I'm interpreting your reply correctly.
Click to expand...

Yep. It's a lot to learn about 121 while also drinking from the firehose.
 
learhawkerbe400 said:
We fly airplanes. We're not working for some trendy tech company in Silicon Valley. Being "well-rounded" has nothing to do with how well you fly an airplane. You know, the thing they pay us to do. In what industry does more experience make you less marketable? It's just so backwards.
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This is so incorrect. In a crew environment, not being a dingleberry is probably the one biggest skill you can bring to the table. Being a well rounded person that is easy to work/communicate with will make you far safer than being able to swing gear with fitness or quote page and verse from the FOM.
 
Ok, I agree and buy that. But how exactly do you quantify that in AirlineApps or PilotCredentials?

If I had to estimate and say that if you go by the 10% rule and say 10% of pilots are those dingleberry/douches that no one can stand, that means of the 15,000 applications, only about 1,500 are those dingleberries. The rest are good people who would be just fine on a trip and easy/fun to get along with. And so how does the application "system" filter that out? Dbags can also volunteer, be more than just a line pilot, and even get recommendations. So to eliminate those 1,500, you have "the process" that exists today. And even then, that process fails because there area some real douchebags at every airline. A piece of paper application can only tell you so much. You can't truly know a person and how they are until you sit them down and talk to them face to face. Sure, you can weed out those who make application mistakes, not paying attention to detail, misspelling, grammar, etc. but that doesn't mean you've eliminated a guy who would have been a pain for a 4-day trip. And while it shows attention to detail, it could just as well show that a sloppy pilot hired a professional company to review and fix his own app. So when you review this app, the guy seems pretty top notch.

In the meantime, here's how you improve it: bring it all in house. No AirlineApps. No pilot who creates a website you have to pay to apply. And yes, you get one free app per year but once that year is up, you will pay or lose it all. Once you lose it and re-apply, how does that look for Delta or United? In their system, do they see you as a newbie who only had his app in for 1 year? Or would they see that as someone who was too cheap to pay for the application fee? Who knows? But to play this game you have to pony up the 50-60 bucks/year. And it's a third party site owned/operated by a pilot who is employed for the company you have applied. I won't say that's a conflict of interest, but why not just bring it in house? If a pilot wants to work for Delta, or United, or [insert airline], you should be able to go to that airline's website, their own dot com, and then click "About" that airline, click Careers, Pilots, and then a nice big "apply" button and be done that way.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Ok, I agree and buy that. But how exactly do you quantify that in AirlineApps or PilotCredentials?

If I had to estimate and say that if you go by the 10% rule and say 10% of pilots are those dingleberry/douches that no one can stand, that means of the 15,000 applications, only about 1,500 are those dingleberries. The rest are good people who would be just fine on a trip and easy/fun to get along with. And so how does the application "system" filter that out? Dbags can also volunteer, be more than just a line pilot, and even get recommendations. So to eliminate those 1,500, you have "the process" that exists today. And even then, that process fails because there area some real douchebags at every airline. A piece of paper application can only tell you so much. You can't truly know a person and how they are until you sit them down and talk to them face to face. Sure, you can weed out those who make application mistakes, not paying attention to detail, misspelling, grammar, etc. but that doesn't mean you've eliminated a guy who would have been a pain for a 4-day trip. And while it shows attention to detail, it could just as well show that a sloppy pilot hired a professional company to review and fix his own app. So when you review this app, the guy seems pretty top notch.

In the meantime, here's how you improve it: bring it all in house. No AirlineApps. No pilot who creates a website you have to pay to apply. And yes, you get one free app per year but once that year is up, you will pay or lose it all. Once you lose it and re-apply, how does that look for Delta or United? In their system, do they see you as a newbie who only had his app in for 1 year? Or would they see that as someone who was too cheap to pay for the application fee? Who knows? But to play this game you have to pony up the 50-60 bucks/year. And it's a third party site owned/operated by a pilot who is employed for the company you have applied. I won't say that's a conflict of interest, but why not just bring it in house? If a pilot wants to work for Delta, or United, or [insert airline], you should be able to go to that airline's website, their own dot com, and then click "About" that airline, click Careers, Pilots, and then a nice big "apply" button and be done that way.
Click to expand...

Here's the thing. If I handed you 5,000 pieces of paper and told you to find me the best 400, how easy would that be?

You can't realistically interview 5,000 people every year for the 400 or so slots you're filling. So:

1) You have to find some way to cut down on the number of applications that you're going to take seriously.
2) Unfortunately that will lead to a good number of high quality applicants getting looked over simply because math.
 
Screaming_Emu said:
Here's the thing. If I handed you 5,000 pieces of paper and told you to find me the best 400, how easy would that be?

You can't realistically interview 5,000 people every year for the 400 or so slots you're filling. So:

1) You have to find some way to cut down on the number of applications that you're going to take seriously.
2) Unfortunately that will lead to a good number of high quality applicants getting looked over simply because math.
Click to expand...

This is true.

If you want to hire 100/month and you've got a 70% success rate, you technically have to interview about 150/month. So a little less than 2,000 applicants out of a pool of about 8-10,000 that everyone is digging out of.

Recommendations are hard because people crank those things out like beads during Mardi Grad so you need a blend of reccs, career fairs, computer selection to validate each and, well, a lot of "other".

I think a lot of people forget about the scale of finding so many people, reliably, that match your corporate fit and forget that we're all not precious snowflakes where even though you're BMOC around the lounge, you're virtually unknown outside of it.

"Why haven't you called?"

"Oh sweet dude, I presume you're a pilot?"
 
Screaming_Emu said:
Here's the thing. If I handed you 5,000 pieces of paper and told you to find me the best 400, how easy would that be?

You can't realistically interview 5,000 people every year for the 400 or so slots you're filling. So:

1) You have to find some way to cut down on the number of applications that you're going to take seriously.
2) Unfortunately that will lead to a good number of high quality applicants getting looked over simply because math.
Click to expand...

Simple. Current method of job fairs, recs, and computer/algorithm scoring. But on top of that, I'd also sort them from longest-app-in-time to least. So the guy who has been applying and updating continuously since say 2010 would get a call before the guy who just applied in 2017 freshly. That shows a long term interest, commitment, and you can cut down on those who start at Delta (or United) and then bail out to another airline because frankly they never really wanted to work at your airline in the first place, but you called, they fooled you, you hired them, and then 6 months later it's bye bye and on to say Fedex.

Also, "keepin' it real" feedback during job fair face/to/face. Not the standard re-hash... if you're FO, "upgrade to CA when you can." If you're a CA, "try be a checkairman." If you are a CA and checkairman, "everything looks great, just keep it up, keep updating."

I will say, the closest I got to a "keepin it real" feedback during a job fair was AA. The guy straight up told me for me, it was working against a numbers game as an off-the-street hire. He said for every say 100 slots, about 50 were going to military, and at the time 35 for flows/guaranteed regional interview stuff from Envoy/PSA/Piedmont, and that it really only left 15 slots for someone like me off the street. He said he would take the resume and put it in that pile, but on a numbers alone game it was tough to say. That kinda thing is appreciated. It's honesty and fully-open up front about how they really work, what types of applicants they are calling to interview, and where the applicant's chance stood of being called. Now I understand that Delta has fully changed this year as opposed to last year in terms of metrics, how they pull applicants, so it's different now. According to APC at least, apparently this year at job fairs AA won't even be taking resumes. It'll apparently be just an informal meeting for Q&As. If true, that's a fairly significant change for the worse. The positive news is at Delta for this year as they do more in-house job fairs free of charge.
 
Oh, and one more thing. Have more standards for civilians beyond just ATP mins. If you want to leave 1,500 total as a requirement for military pilots, by all means. Since you asked me @Screaming_Emu if I was running things, I'd do what I could to cut down that 10,000 pile in the first place. Having minimums higher than just ATP mins would be a good way to start. Alaska requires 3,000 total. So like it nor not, that eliminates a lot of pilot applicants. If Delta/AA/United had a 3,000 hr total time requirement, that too would cut down on some amount of applications as well. Pilots can easily swallow something when they know they don't meet a requirement for the job. The reason AA/DL/UA have the number of applicants they do is because they literally don't have any minimums asides from ATP mins. At least Delta requires turbine time, AA doesn't even require that. You could theoretically be a CFI-only flying Cessna 172s and as long as you have an ATP-ME, you could get hired at AA.

Wanna cut down the pile? Start increasing mins. Isn't that what happens anyway when the supply is high and demand low (compared to that supply).
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Oh, and one more thing. Have more standards for civilians beyond just ATP mins. If you want to leave 1,500 total as a requirement for military pilots, by all means. Since you asked me @Screaming_Emu if I was running things, I'd do what I could to cut down that 10,000 pile in the first place. Having minimums higher than just ATP mins would be a good way to start. Alaska requires 3,000 total. So like it nor not, that eliminates a lot of pilot applicants. If Delta/AA/United had a 3,000 hr total time requirement, that too would cut down on some amount of applications as well. Pilots can easily swallow something when they know they don't meet a requirement for the job. The reason AA/DL/UA have the number of applicants they do is because they literally don't have any minimums asides from ATP mins. At least Delta requires turbine time, AA doesn't even require that. You could theoretically be a CFI-only flying Cessna 172s and as long as you have an ATP-ME, you could get hired at AA.

Wanna cut down the pile? Start increasing mins. Isn't that what happens anyway when the supply is high and demand low (compared to that supply).
Click to expand...

But you're missing the point that being fit for the job has very little to do with hours.
 
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