Originally Posted by
bcpilot
My Biggest fear is How will they take my long Gap of 12 yrs at the interview, with no flying in between & just 60 odd hours recently………..
Did you ever work as a professional pilot before? If not, the gap won't really matter.
If you did work as a commercial pilot, they will probably enquire as to why you stopped. Just have a reasonable answer which will lead them away from the suspicion that you will quit again before they recover their cost of training you.
Originally Posted by
bcpilot
Will I be even called for an interview..?? Will they even consider me as an viable applicant...??
That depends on:
1. Do you meet their competitive requirements? There is a thread on eagle hiring here which should address that.
2. Sounds like you will be current, no problem there.
3. Most airlines require X number of hours in the last 6 or 12 months, anywhere from 50-200. Check out their web site for details, amke sure you will have enough. This requirement is often a round-about way of saying they want to hire people who are currently employed as professional pilots (or rich enough to own their own plane and buy a lot of gas).
Originally Posted by
bcpilot
Do I have to be employed in aviation to get a job in Eagle or any regional. Can I have the experience & knowledge that is required and be working somewhere else & go to the interview…
See above. You don't have to employed, but many interviewers will give some preference to someone with professional (including CFI) flying experience over a private pilot with a CPL.
But there are definitely people who have gotten hired with no commercial experience. Not sure where AE is on this.
Originally Posted by
bcpilot
Should I get a CFI and start working an instructor to have some aviation job history?
Given your relatively low hours I suspect that would be a good idea. Also a better way to get current than just burning holes in the sky turning avgas (and money) into noise. If you get your CFI, CFII, MEI that should cover all of your currency issues and set you up to get an instructor job.
Originally Posted by
bcpilot
Is there a minimum # of flying hrs that EAGLE requires an applicant to have in last 6 or 12 months? Should I do more flying than 60 hrs… Should I do Glass Cockpit transition also & get glass experience.
See above. Check their website for minimum hours and recency. 60 hours should be enough for currency unless they require more.
Mixed feelings on jet/glass. I would say no to jet training, spend the money on your instructor ratings.
Some GA glass experience might be a good foundation for airline training...once you get your basic skills up to snuff.
Originally Posted by
bcpilot
Also, I have read here on APC that airframe is dependent on age, so do younger guys get ATR or do older guys get ATR. Can a new hire have a choice in what equipment/ Airframe one gets.
All airlines sort new hires within a given class by some system, usually age or last four of social security number. I know eagle used to use age (oldest being most senior) but some airlines have gone away from age due to possible discrimination issues (youth discrimination I guess).
Somebody should know the answer, so you should be able to predict your relative seniority in your new-hire class based on age or SSN.
However as far as base and airframe goes, what they do is offer what openings they happen to have on that day...no guarantee of any particular base or airframe.
An entire class could go to the same base and airframe if that's what is availble on that day. Other times their will be some choices, with the senior people getting their pick.
Assume that you will NOT get a high-seniority base...those would have been taken by senior line pilots before they offer them to new-hires.
Basically no way to predict in advance, but you can guess based on their recent practices if you know someone who has access to their seniority list/bid system.