Originally Posted by crewdawg;[url=tel:3257442
3257442[/url]]I'm in my late-30s, have been here for 7-8 years and I still don't have 6,000 hours, that would be a poor metric to use. It shouldn't be all that hard to figure out your age with all the other information provided, high school, college, jobs, etc. In fact, I'm guessing a simple algorithm could pretty much nail your age if they wanted.
On an anecdotal note, I've worked for three different airlines. In each of my indoc classes we had at least one mid-50s pilot in the class, with the class at my regional having two. Not a single one of them made it through training and onto the line. I'm not saying that older pilots can't hack it, it could very well be that all those guys just happened to be weak swimmers. It would be interesting to see if there is data on failure rates vs age vs experience.
SWA would be the flip see if that. The new hires are generally older and many in their fifties with great success in training.
When I was a CK pilot at my last company the new hires before I left were older with lots of $100 hamburger hours. They were a challenge and the training footprint skyrocketed.
I was a high time pilot the last time I got hired. Couldn’t get a call from DAL, busted the hogan, got invited to AA a week before Covid. I fill all boxes completely and then some. I do think being a high-time RJ pilot can carry a stigma with it, and enough anecdotal support doesn’t help.
But the flows at AA are in that category as well and seem to do fine.
The pilot pool is going to get competitive and the HR antics are going to go away and carriers will hire the best pilots presented to them as they can.