Originally Posted by
untied
I've flown with good interns and bad.
The biggest beef most guys have with interns is the fact that they didn't pay their dues.
I don't care who you are….at 23 years old you have no business in a United cockpit. You simply don't have the experience to be useful.
The pool of applicants is overflowing with highly experienced aviators. There is no reason to be scooping up children with minimal flight time.
(For you 2000 interns, I'm obviously not talking about you!)
I was never a fan of the program. It was pretty much a vehicle for rich, entitled kids (who could afford to take a semester off without pay) to take a short cut to a job. For every kid they hired, they left a 30+ year old (high time) pilot on the street.
I've met a few interns that have gotten jobs in the training center. Instead of going out and actually flying airplanes, they are continuing to schmooz people in the building with hopes of finding that "short cut" to a job.
That's the LAST guy I would hire.
Like I said…I'm not talking about ALL interns. Many did go out and get some serious experience before they were hired.
ALL interns who got hired cut in line ahead of white, male applicants - period. And at times there were a LOT of people cutting in line ahead of white, male applicants so they had a lot of company doing it. It was the system set up by the airlines, just like there's a system today and there was a system to hire zero time guys in the late 60's and there was a system to hire 22 year old guys at United into the group of 570 in 1985, and... The airlines are always engaging in some stupid BS, it just changes by decade and anybody who tells me they routinely turn their nose up at opportunity is either a liar or fool.
The rich entitled thing is BS too, I was dirt poor and living on ramen noodles and most of my intern pals were as well. But here's a factual statistic for you: Interns tend to go into union work and do other volunteer work, but very few of them go into management. Over the last fifteen years at United there has been one or more interns in senior ALPA leadership at all times. I can't name one intern in pilot management however.
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