Originally Posted by
Cubdriver
It doesn't cost them very much to have you come down and struggle with it and then leave. My guess is a few grand per failure.
Man, you should sit in on day one of Mesaba indoc to hear the way it should be done. They bluntly tell you that they WANT you to pass and that if you do your part, they'll do everything in their capacity to help you pass. This includes extra one-on-one training, sim observations, mentoring, etc.
Our sim costs around $600-$800 an hour to operate, depends on who you ask. Say $700/hr x 32 hours, that's $22,400 alone per crew on training in the sim. That excludes 6 weeks of ground school, materials, etc. I've heard from someone in our training dept. that the average cost to put a new guy thru is between $40,000-,$50,000.
So YES, it does cost them if you wash out. If your management doesn't realize it, it's their fault. Finally, kudos to Mesaba who doesn't even have a training contract in light of the immense cost per pilot. (The washout rate at Mesaba is around 5%, btw)