chazbird

Okay, let's all figure out there's little rhyme or reason to who gets hired or actually, aninterview. Here's my situation: roughly 6700TT/3600 Turbine-ME, 4000 PIC (not a whole bunch of Multi PIC) BA & MA degrees, no messy history etc...but only 120 hours in the last 3-4 months but not currently flying and maybe 1000 in the last 12 years (doing very respected and unique aviation work, but not directly flying)

And.....virtually nothing is happening. No, I'm not sending stuff to regionals, don't and can't go that way. I did that a long time ago. Honestly, I think if I did they would ignore it. All in all it strikes me as very odd. These days the pyramid is very sharp and very steep. "Easy" to get a regional job and sort of impossible otherwise.

Ellen

In your case, it's definitely lack of currency in high workload 121 environment. Airlines are not will to bang the rust off your wings.

If you really wanted to go national, major, legacy route, my advice would be to suck it up and work for a regional for 9 months. (3 months training and 6 mo. flying). Start firing resumes out into month 4,5,6 with a few hundred jet turbine under your belt.

You'd be grabbed up after that. If asked why you were leaving the regional so soon . . . simple, "I just wanted to make sure I was prepared and felt comfortable in my abilities as a pilot before I applied to (XYZ Airline)

gbntpilot

Yeah, some of the students I've had get hired recently have had rediculously low times. After seeing them in the cockpit, some of them were downright scary...and I'm saying that as a low time person myself.

I agree that the posted mins don't mean a thing. I asked a Chief Pilot at one regional about it. He said that even though they are hiring with much less time, they can't actually lower the posted minimums. He said they tried it once, and ALPA basically created a PR nightmare for the airline, saying that they were hiring unqualified pilots. So, they bumped them back up to 600/100 for the public eye, just to satisfy the union. But, they continue to hire pilots with half that.

My luck with other regionals has been hit or miss. I applied to Comair, and went to Cincinnati for an interview. I did very well, but they wanted to see more recent experience. The 6 month wait wouldn't apply to me. So, I went out and built some time, and got another rating. When I tried to contact them for a second interview, I didn't get a response (two attempts by email and fax). But, since they're closing their Greensboro and Orlando domiciles, I'm not sure I'm interested anymore anyway since those were the places I wanted to be. I'm not too keen on the idea of having to commute to JFK for 6-12 months. Plus, I've heard there is some truth to the rumors that Air Wisconsin is exploring the possibility of buying out Comair.

I also tried Republic not too long ago, and didn't hear anything. I got an email response a few weeks later saying that all the applicants that applied within a certain time were dumped by the computer (some sort of glitch I guess), and that I should re-apply if I was still interested. But, I have an interview with ASA next week. So, I'll see if that works out first before I apply anywhere else. I'd rather focus on one or two regionals at a time rather than flooding the entire industry with cookie-cutter resumes.

BoilerUP

I'd highly suggest you don't make any career decisions based on that gem of a rumor right there...

saab2000

The rumors have slowed down at AWAC. This place used to have tons, now it is just daily business.

I am not going to say a Comair deal won't happen, but there is absolutely no evidence that it will. Even our upper management would probably not be privvy to info like that, so I am not quite sure how a new-hire candidate might know about it.

Don't believe the rumors. Believe only the facts, and even then be skeptical!!

BoilerUP

Didn't all the "big" happenings at AWAC in the recent past (AirTran, US Airways, etc) occur with little to no warning? Still don't think anything is going to happen though...the pilots are still 3% too expensive.

mregan

Hey Bizzum,
flew a few trips this weekend and scheduled for a couple more this week so it looks possible to get the 15 moremuti in the next week if AWAC doesnt call me right away. Hoping they do this week, but with the holiday, that may not happen.

pilot754

1111111111

Squawk_5543

Whiskey pilots - are the company website posted mins still current? 500/125?

fosters

Hey Saab, looks like you finally pulled the upgrade off?