Hueypilot

Hmmmm. I don't fly for DAL, but it seems some of the interview processes out there are a bit crazy. I was hired at my airline without nary a mention of my GPA. All they cared about was my experience instructing people, safety background, and work as assistant chief pilot and military squadron ADO. No talk about speeding tickets, nor whether I aced college english classes. No psychologists lurking around either. I can understand being picky but it appears it's almost like trying to get on with the space program at some airlines.

ghilis101

Theyre not just discriminators to help weed out the stack, some of these qualifiers have a secondary purpose. This will definitely change when the floodgates are fully opened. There are a lot of really big things that they love right now besides GPA, like community service, DAL and AA like masters degrees, and so on.

CRM and modern HR changed EVERYTHING, and I like it. Its not just about putting bodies in the seat right now. It is, at the regionals, and the quality assurance there is beginning to worry many people (the majority are still sharp and good pilots, this is not meant to stereotype anyone).

Most airlines don't put you in a sim anymore (Im confident UAL will ditch their 737 interview sim soon enough). They know you can fly because you've got thousands of hours. They want the other stuff. CRM, customer service, do you know how to keep 2 FA's from ripping each other's hair out, have you gone out of your way to do something that rounds you out as a person (volunteer work, great customer service, speak another language, whatever). A good GPA mght seem weird, but it shows that your teachers probably didn't dislike you (haha) and you worked well in groups to get decent grades (this is big in my opinion). If you got good grades in college or your masters, its definitely an indicator in other areas. If you didn't get good grades, it doesn't make you any less of a pilot, but again its a box that cant be checked, just like those of us that didn't make IP or Check Airman, or those of us that didn't get a masters, or those of us that don't do community service, etc.

ShyGuy

Although to be fair that's not always true.

ghilis101

Good point goes to show just how hard it is to work in pilot hiring.

Hueypilot

I'm sure that DAL's process has a purpose, but it seems like a fine-toothed comb compared to other processes. I had a 2.78 GPA in my undergrad education, but it was in geology and was very heavy in math, physics, chemistry, etc. I think it's odd that a person could be a DG from USAF pilot training, etc but DAL gets wrapped around the axle over a undergrad GPA from 20+ years ago.

WARich

ditto. If I had a dollar for every "brainy" that washed out of UPT I wouldn't need to fly for a living. But reality is, they can have what ever box they want to have right now. So we just have to deal with it I guess.

Loon

Hopefully you're right about the floodgates; Then a lot of this nonsense will go the way of the dodo.

badflaps

I'd have no chance of getting hired at DAL in today's market..

Spudhauler

Sure a lot of speculation going on here. Delta isn't going to tell someone why they didn't get an interview or hired. My experience is that they care about the whole, not individual parts, unless some glaring red flag shows up. The idea that we're only hiring astronauts with perfect GPAs who help old ladies across the street in their spare time is asinine.

ghilis101

Some speculation, but mostly statistics based. Since DAL resumed hiring, they have overwhelmingly hired high gpa's with incredible qualifications. Its not to say they WONT hire you if you dont have those boxes checked, its more to point out that the competition out there is incredible. And there are still hundreds if not thousands of high GPA pilots out there. Remember they cant pick you out of the stack on personality, although most of us wish they would. So you need to find a way to get noticed...