I just had a chat with my favorite attorney this evening. The one thing that jumped out to this attorney was how the company regularly, and persistently reminded you that this program was "up-r-out", but would usually qualify that by saying that almost nobody fails training at SkW.

Naturally, this policy wouldn't work if folks thought they were seriously going to get fired. They wouldn't sign up. The EMB training manager actually gave us numbers. I wrote them down at the time. He said 5 had failed in 4 years. I remember thinking what a bunch of dumb*sses those 5 must have been. I had two classmates question me about it; one was concerned enough that I went and talked to one of the training managers and discussed his concerns (as a SAPA rep, anonymous pilot). I pretty much offered the party line; "Hey, they've got a lot of money invested in us. They're not going to let you fail. Just do your best."

One of the SAPA reps was in that first Metro upgrade class when it was announced (after the class started) that the new policy was "up-r-out". So, when the group became unresponsive in class, the instructor reassured them with, "who do you know that has ever failed a SkW training event?"

He passed, but the reality is folks do not pass. Not very many. But way more than 5 in 4 years. It's just quietly shuffled under the carpet when it happens. We heard that a female new hire had just failed the ground school written exam twice. She was fired, but offered to reapply in 6 months.

But the two female upgrades who failed before our class (unsubstantiated rumor), of course, were fired just like me.

And naturally, they don't include the folks who quit, like the one guy who did in my class, just after the ground written. He basically quit in lieu of waiting to fail and then getting fired.

The other substantial thing is that virtually ANY OTHER TRAINING EVENT at SkW has a backup plan if things go bad, except for upgrade.