Originally Posted by
fukbinladen
If you want hawaiian or aloha, i would suggest staying on the mainland and finding yourself a descent regional, get some pic time, and then apply. if you go back to the islands now, it'll take you ages to become competitive. you gotta figure youre competing with all of the island air guys who want to move up and a flight instructor job aint gonna cut it. differentiate your resume from theirs. it is very important to those airlines that you have ties to hawaii, which it seems like you do. they also value mainland experience ex. glass time, wx, atc, jet time, 121, etc. so just suck it up a few more years and then go back to the islands straight to hawaiian or aloha. das wut i stay dooin bruddah.
Yup, I agree. After instructing, I am looking to spend about 3 years on the mainland building time at a regional before attempting to head home.
I had so much hope for getting into Hawaiian Airlines but I fear I don't have enough connections despite a few contacts there. There has also got be a lot of pilot's sons and daughters just waiting for HA to start hiring again. I was told as long as you meet the mins, HA will hire 1) relatives, 2) people they know.
I'm not sure how easy it is to get hired at AQ, but a couple of guys I know got hired over the summer. One came from American Eagle (who roughed it out on the mainland for a couple years), the other Island Air (who first roughed it out through Corporate Air in the islands). Both guys are from Hawaii.
One strategy in my mind is to get into Island Air. The flow through from Island Air to Aloha and Hawaiian is pretty traditional. The whole idea is networking and helping each other out.