Sully mentioned to congress that the lifelong aviator was going away. People who were genuinely interested in aviation. They types who come from diverse backgrounds that were developed over a decade or two prior to reaching the airlines.

In their place we have manufactured company men by design. Somewhere around 1998 there must have been a regional airline executive conference someplace because it seems that from that point on the regionals began to actively select away from seasoned and experienced pilots from broad backgrounds and hire the 300 hour wonder instead.

I saw this at my own regional. They had guys in reception holding resumes with thousands of hours of experience and guys with as little as 290 hours sitting in class. It was a choice. The company believed that the zero time guys were better somehow and they were of course. Guys with experience do not have to stay. In fact they frequently left once the saw the depression pit that place was first hand.

New guys were different, they were challenged and happy, did not have many bills to pay for and could not leave even to flight instruct. The perfect company men. The legacy airlines do not like to hire those who come from diverse backgrounds either. They like guys who have been installed at a regional early on and who stayed in their little cubicle in the sky without causing trouble for years.

Guys with messy backgrounds like Sully was referring to often have things like helicopters and gliders in their logbooks. They may have held a range of jobs like missionary flying or crop dusting. Plenty of situations there to have scratched or bent something. Add to that the flippant nature of their employment history and to an HR representative you look like a flake. Pilots from diverse backgrounds are too confident, too arrogant.

The real reason though is that the airlines have learned that they do not need to pay for experience anymore. Just plug in a low time automaton straight from the university system and watch them take mountains of abuse with a smile on their face. Furthermore once conditioned at an early age they will continue to do so for a career. They do not know any better because they have not held other jobs before.

It works like a charm.

Skyhigh