Originally Posted by
jumppilot
Hoss,
Please understand that "United South" has been operating at full capacity and I've seen first hand how instructors have sacrificed to make sure the mission gets done.
The issue we, United Airlines, are dealing with is the amount of pilots who are exercising their seniority to upgrade to 737 CA. If you look at all the latest vacancy bids, you'll see that many pilots are upgrading who haven't been on the 737 for years, which requires a full course.
I'm sure you'll say "I don't care, it's their right. Seniority blah blah blah", but the issue is real. Sim space is at a premium and those that abuse it cause problems. Note, I said abuse.
To further address the quote of your post, DENTK isn't having these problem because not many people are cross bidding to the A-320 or 76T, which is why many new hires are going to those fleets.
Instead of trying to point fingers, why don't we all try to address the problems that affect our airline so that we can have somewhere to retire from.
What solutions do you suggest? Believe me, we are listening. I know we can use any good suggestion that comes our way, even if via Airline Pilot Forums.
We are doing our best.
It makes no sense to say we are doing our best if your best is not accomplishing the job. What is needed is effective and meaningful changes to the 737 program. These changes should have been anticipated and put into place over a year ago.
Hire and
train an adequate number of training schedulers, if it ain't broke don't fix it, NOW is not the time to move all of the schedulers and replace those who don't want to move with newbies. Should have hired 30 to 50 additional 737 PI's BEFORE the inevitable crush was here. Beg, borrow, buy or steal any and all sim time that can be had. Hint there are multiple empty bays that once held 737 sims at DENTK. Develop an efficient and consistent standard training syllabus that prepares and informs the student before the training event so that everybody knows what to expect for the sim session, this cuts down on stress and makes the training event go much smoother with fewer do overs reducing sim time.
That would be a very strong start to this training issue which is only going to get worse. But blaming LUAL (United North
) pilots for the training back log is just plain stupid and is a major part of the group think mentality that is destroying this airline.