Originally Posted by Brody

I put this on another thread a month or two ago, but I'll repost it here.

My conversation with an APD I know well went something like this:

Me - "What's new in the training department?"

Him - "Ugly - REAL ugly."

Me - "Why's that?

Him - "Mesa has been hiring retirees from other airlines as instructors. They're signing off pilots to take their checkrides who aren't even close to being ready, so I'm failing nearly half of the students because of this. I feel bad - I mean, I feel terrible about it because I know it stays on their record forever. But once the checkride has started, I have no other choice. Even though I know why they're sub-par, I can't send them back for more training without unsat-ing them first. It really sucks. I can tell within the first few minutes of the checkride if they weren't trained by a Mesa instructor."

I'm paraphrasing, but that's almost verbatim what I was told. It was pretty recent. This is pathetic - no airline should ever put their pilots in this situation. Just another day at Mesa.