Originally Posted by
rorwizard
Actually the only reason that they are interviewing at those hours at UND is because those people have been through the UND program (Along with CRJ training) and Mesaba knows what kind of pilot their getting. UND Grads have had a 98% first time pass rate during training, where the industry average is somewhere between 50-60% from what I'm told.
Also I know for a fact that no one that interviewed with Mesaba last week at UND has heard if they got a job or not.
UND does produce good results, but at Mesaba, everyone including people from other places also finish around 98% mark. This is because, Mesaba has been training airline pilots for over 40 years and they have one of the best training department I have ever seen. One thing to note is that your attitude really matters. 1 UND graduate though he finished training on time including his IOE, he was asked to resign due to his attitudes.
Concentrated training such as the ones at UND are great but you are also missing out a lot if you jump straight from that to airline flying. You miss out on the exhilaration you can only get from flying GA airplanes to different places over a period of time on your own outside the school curriculum. Once you start flying at airlines, you really don't have the time, or the money to fly small airplanes all over the country. If you have less than 400 hours and you got lucky enough to get hired at Mesaba, pray that you get the Saabs, because you will get a chance to fly like they did in the old days when airliners flew props. New UND graduates with less than 400 hours TT are fewer in number than suggested on this thread.