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 got the chance to pickup a brand new 777 from Boeing as a intern at United in the summer of 97. Went with the 777 chief pilot who believe it or not was 39 years old. Talk about being hired at the right time. He was hired at 21-22 years old. United guaranteed their interns 2 interviews if needed! In or around 1996 they wanted the interns to hold off applying until they had at least 1500 hours as they realized the chances of sticking them sideways on a panel for 2 years was diminishing with the pending retirements of 727 and 747 classic. Great experience being 22 and hoping in a 747 sim and shooting approachs to the old hong kong airport. Then Jump seating with 39 year old fleet captain to pickup a brand new 777