Originally Posted by
gloopy
There was a time when UAL was madly in lust with interns. As in automatically hired at bare minimum quals, which back then were around 300 hours TT. Shuffle office papers for 3 months in the summer in school and jump ahead of 10+ years of competitive quals. There was at least one who got to land an actual 777 (ferry/mx/etc flight) with a wet commercial and no training just as an office perk.
I've heard the story about the intern who flew the 777. It was probably 15 years ago that I heard this story but I think she did go to training on it and even received a type rating. Apparently she filled in for a secretary that was out for a few weeks. Since this was outside the normal intern job description a VP decided to make it up to her by sending her to training on the 777. Afterwards she was able to ride along on a delivery flight from Seattle. I didn't hear that she landed it, but I did hear she was able to sit in one of the pilot seats during cruise and log some time in it.
I know that being an intern at UA used to, and I'm guessing it still does, guarantee you an interview but not the job. I know several ex-interns who didn't make it through the interview process, so it was definitely not a guaranteed job. Granted this was during the 90s when you had a better chance of making it through the NASA astronaut interview than you did the United interview on your first try.