Originally Posted by
gloopy
You might be right about the interview vs the job now versus then. But "back in the day" being intern was absolutely worshipped by UAL to the point of jumping the entire profession to get an almost automatic interview that was an almost automatic job offer. IMO that's not good for anyone when 500 hour pilots can walk into a competitive job where everyone else needs 5000+ or mil equivalent...it just cheapens it for everyone. I hope those days are gone and don't ever come back. Unfortunately one negative of the "pilot shortage" are some of the upcoming bridge programs that could end up putting some shockingly low qualified pilots into seats at all levels of the profession.
I agree with your post. But keep in mind, "back in the day", interning at UAL was super competitive. TK usually only had maybe 6-8 per semester from ALL the schools UAL had the agreement with. Fast forward to the late 90's-2000 and it jumped to 40-50 at TK alone per semester. Never mind all the ones that were spread out in the various domiciles system wide.
Also keep in mind, there were interns, just like sons and daughters, just like inter company transfers, etc that got turned down. The advice was "yeah, you've got a guaranteed interview, but don't go in there and blow it". Which is EXACTLY what some did.