Originally Posted by
madmax757
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong - But in the early 60s United was paying Pilots commercial ratings with a guaranteed job once you passed. A friend of mines dad was one of those - hired in 1963 and retired off the whale in 2000. My airline an ULCC - considered a Major on APC is hiring Purdue grads with the restricted ATP - I believe we have 5 or so now.
Granted they do have 1000 ish hours vs the 250 hour guys in 1963.
I was hired 9-63, but then you had to have C-SEL, Inst. Shortly after, they hired a few to send across the field to Gates for Comm. Inst. Same with T-way. More of an exploration into the unknown than anything else, but these were engineer jobs, it would be a while before they let you near the machinery. The sad part was at TWA they would hire a class of F/O's and then a class of S/O's. Upgrade went in seniority. Many S/O's failed upgrade due to sitting sideways for so long. 100 hour IOE's were not uncommon. Brutal.
