Not only does it not smell right the facts don't support it either. DL's posted their averages for CIV, CIV/MIL, and MIL. AA's told us what their average was.

AA - 5556 TT (no other data given).

DL -

# TT PIC

CIV 502 7656 4126

C/M 233 4938 2955

MIL 728 3119 2249


There's no way the bell curve stops 344 hrs above the average. That means, with a standard bell curve, that the minimum civilian new hire would have 7212 hrs.

None of this shows the additional duties, union work, or other airline industry, professional, or civic leadership boxes checked. Type ratings, qualifications/experience vs age, vs peers, type of flying, etc, etc.

Or how many times the candidates presented themselves formally to the recruiting teams.

I spoke with a candidate recently. He's an airline employee. His airline's recruiters know him by name. He's been told "you can't just walk up and hand us a resume. You have to present yourself at job fairs."

There's some unknown value at the job fairs. And, at least at his airline, walking into the recruiting office, again and again, doesn't help.

Here's another number that jumps out at me, 16% of the DL numbers above are civ/mil. Anyone think 16% of a major airline's pilot corps has a civ/mil background before they got hired? I'd guess it's low single digits which seems to indicate that getting civilian, and I'd highly suggest 121, flying might be a great resume kicker for separating military pilots. It's a learning curve and IMO a 121 regional job will prepare you better for the big job better than other choice out there. That's a fairly common belief amongst other recruiting volunteers so I wouldn't be surprised if the people that set up the various recruiting filtering programs assign value to that.