I used Checked and Set. Charlie Venema was a big wig on the United hiring team.

I’ll give them a shout. Much appreciated.

Just wait until that Chinese-style behavioral rating system makes its way over here in a few years...

That post was slightly sarcastic, but that is the way management looks at things... “If we publicly support X group then Y demographic will think of us first when buying premium tickets or traveling for business.”

Folks in first class and frequent fliers don’t care about specific pilot backgrounds, but they do notice who sits up front...

Ummmmmm, I work ‘here’ and almost everyone I personally know that works here would probably say that just being a decent human being would suffice - but what’s really important are competence and not being a total AAHole to your fellow crew members and customers. But you believe whatever is in vogue with HR...

And guess what, that’s what the interview is about!!!

Priorities to fellow crew members :
1) Is this person going to be the reason all my fine pink mist escapes my big fat body in a horribly painful fashion and ties the hands of the insurance underwriters so that all my buddies are now out of work...

2) Can this person play well with the people we’ve already hired... ‘pilotsplaining’ - am I going to want to strangle you mid sequence - because I don’t think I can do ‘hard time’ and I really like making six figures staring out the window for a living.

3) Is this person going to scare off the people that pay me six figures to stare out the window...

Diversity and Inclusion are not why most of us came to work here - it’s about $4-7MM earned in your career looking out a window (and therefore proving your third grade teacher wrong) and having decent QWL with interesting people that you may be lucky enough to call friends.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No, I hear ya. Just saying, people want professionals up front. They could care less what parades you march in on your days off. And like it or lump it, it’s reassuring to see that evil white male up front. I don’t think people say, “Wow, all I see are pale male pilots! I’m taking the bus!”

Funny, when I was overseas they wanted Americans in front. Being a white guy is a bonus everywhere but here I guess. Thank goodness my kids can claim “Native American”—they’re gonna’ need it.

Attaboy. Exactly right.

Hey, I had this handle before it was cool to use a noun!! Also not a white male, BTW...

Well, that’s just great! Now I have to report myself to the rule 32 board!




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It may sound ridiculous, but I'm starting to hear more about having some type of community service on your app gives it a better scoring chance with the filtering programs the legacies now use. Had a flight attendent recently who's boyfriend is at Republic mention this also. They volunteered a few weekends at their local soup kitchen helping to feed the homeless so he could add it to his application.

I know it's a bummer to hear but I too did everything FlyDC recommended. Was previous 121 and hired off the street in 2016.

- WAI, NGPA, OBAP
- attended WAI conference and met recruiters
- volunteered in my off time
- Worked in safety department at my old airline
- Worked with recruitment service to catch all the bugs and gotchya's on the resume
- updated my app every day (one flight hour at a time)
- Several internal recs

It's not impossible and things are about to move

American Airlines wants to see that you support diversity and inclusion because they want to know that you can work well with people different from yourself, both in and out of the cockpit. They want to know that you will treat ALL people with respect.

Yes, and most of us can do that without bragging about it, or taking a class about it, or joining the organizations you mention, or having it shoved down our throats. Most of us already do this without having to be told. Most of us did this in a previous job. That’s what makes it PC BS.

It’s kind of like in the Air Force, some new commanders will say “I’m a servant leader”. Yeah? Don’t tell me...just do it.

Maybe there is a reason AA hasn't called you.

Good luck chasing UAL.

You are average hour wise, not 121, and haven't had a significant training event in the last five years but it's your white skin that's holding you back, got it.

Curious because I’ve heard this numerous times now, true/false/rumor? Is it really true there is an invisible requirement/filter that checks if you’ve had a major training event in the last 5 years? If true, that could be an issue for those at single fleet type only?

Shack...




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

US Airways had that requirement mostly because of all the issues they were having with long time FOs who were burnt out not being able to pass training events/upgrades. No idea if AA has it.

It's funny looking back but getting downgraded was the best thing that ever happened to me because it gave me another recent training event that put me through on their selection criteria. Meanwhile a lot of guys just senior to me who never got downgraded were still at my regional years later. Kinda funny how it all seems to work out.

I only mentioned it because Slice has some good intel at times.

What am I doing wrong?
 

As for the OP, I don’t think the passengers care much who is in the front of the bus - as long as they are competent and good at their jobs.

Sorry man, but in the US skin color/gender shouldn’t matter with the competence bias at major airlines. To get to this point, the training and experience level is higher than almost anywhere else in the world. There are always exceptions and I definitely think we all have our 2% rule, but your experience with getting on at a legacy should prove the point.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If that were truly the case, then this wouldn’t be an issue. I couldn’t count how many times I’ve heard prejudice and/or bias comments at work about women, people of color, gays, and people of a certain age or religion. Just because you haven’t experienced discrimination at work, doesn’t mean that others haven’t. Why do you think we keep getting memos and assessments on the topic?

I’ll play the grumpy old man:

Welcome to the major/legacy airline quest. “Very qualified” merely gets you into the short stack of a couple thousand resumes. The three main ingredients for winning the major airline job lotto in no particular order are:

1) Networking

2) Active patience (update and improve regularly, but expect nothing to speed the process)

3) Luck

Even in the best pilots' market in decades you can forget about expecting fairness and/or entitlement (the “not running for office” comment had these tones imo). Maybe the regionals are easy to get a job at now, but the shortage hasn’t crunched the top tier yet, nor will it for a few more years. You gotta work hard within coach's rules so you might get to play the game, or don’t and sit on the bench.

So Santini, your app is probably fine. Have someone else sit and review it with you. Get interview/app consulting. Pray. Not trying to be flippant, that’s just what else you can do.


Good luck!

I wasn't going to bring it up but I have flown with pilots who:

Hate Women (instructor pilot)
Hate Gays
Hate Filipino people
Hate Jewish people

Such a nice world out there.

I'll add an observation that it's more of an extension of the point on networking. All of the big boys have some form of recommendation process. They clearly need a way to filter through the "small" stack of highly qualified applicants. The internal LOR (or LORs) seems to be a big breakout. It's clearly the case at DAL, FX, SWA, AA....an on.

At American, they are pretty open about where they focus their recruiting emphasis. They push their WOs, like military trained aviators, and straight from Pilot Recruitment, they place a premium on internal recs. As you build your network, try to get connected with mainline or WO CAs/FOs... It could be the last bit of help you need!

Je$u$ tap dancing Christ. Two words that need to take a little breather in this country.

Just. Stop.

Please. Stop the "People of Color" hor$e $hit too. The real problem with society are white lefties that have to use fake terms for fellow human beings with different pigmentation. Ugh!

This isn't going to stop, buddy. Get used to it.

Re: lack of recent training experience - No insider solid info. But it had been a factor in the past. And the schoolhouse guys know, or at least say, guys who’ve been in one seat a long time struggle with their next school.

Just like mil guys getting 121 Qual’d, or a mil getting getting an IP qual, or a guy upgrading, I've seen guys get new type ratings and all of the previous resume improvements have resulted in them getting contacted.

Is that proof? No. Does it make me wonder if it’s part of the matrix? Yes. Would I chase that new square if I was applying and could get a new square filled, especially with a recent training event? Absolutely. In the past a lack of a new training qualification within five years was a ‘drop dead’ line. If it was a possibility I’d erase that unknown question mark.

That’s crap. The only thing I care about is whether the guy or gal next to me can; #1, fly well enough for me to trust them, #2 isn’t such a tool that I shut them out after 15 minutes.

The only thing that should count is skills and the ability to get along. The best qualified person for the job, period. Artificial quotas lead to issues in training and line ops. I’ve seen that show before and it’s not pretty.

cactusmike,
That is what I said earlier. These people who are pushing this PC BS and talking about white privalidge are part of the problem not the solution. By hiring someone because of there status and not because of their excellent qualfications, you are downgrading the safety of this airline. This is an unforgiving business and it doesnt matter what race, religion or who you sleep with. If you are good enough to do this job then you should be in this profession.

A simple question to ask yourself is, would you allow your family to fly with this person in the cockpit? That is the most important question and the answer should be yes. If not, then they dont need to be upfront. I have flown with all types and don't care about who it is as long as they are safe and fun to be with for 3-4 fours days on the road.

You all are missing the point. Nobody is saying you need to be a minority to get hired as an AA pilot. The overwhelming majority of our new hires are straight, white, men.

American Airlines wants to see that you support diversity and inclusion because you’re going to be working with people from all walks of life. Not just in the cockpit, but with all different types of coworkers and customers. We don’t want people that are going to bring their bias and prejudice into the workplace.

You may not personally agree with this, but this is the official philosophy of the airline. It may not matter to you, but it is important to many of the people who work here, myself included.

Btw, you should be prepared to talk about what diversity and inclusion means to you, should you ever be fortunate enough to get an interview. I was asked in two different ways when I interviewed in 2016.

Exactly. I love how white males feel they are being discriminated against whenever a minority gets hired. 90% of our pilots look the same and have similar qualifications. However when a minority gets hired with the same credentials - somehow "they" didn’t deserve it, or had an advantage. When 10% is too much.

As usual with these kinds of threads...a lot of people telling on themselves.

If you can't get hired in a profession that's 90%+ white male, it's not the minorities...it's you. Reflect.

The hiring group population isn’t 90% white male. Close to 80-85% but still overwhelmingly white male.

The question is does the percentage of any group getting hired equal the same percentage of that group’s share of the overall hiring pool. Ignoring military/civilian how many different sub groups are there? Four to five major groups? The company has stated, for at least one year, that they hired twice as many out of one group. That doesn’t happen randomly so to some extent target hiring was, and might still be, part of the process.

With the largest group being white males doubling a small sub group’s hiring resulted in approx 10% less white males getting hired.

Some would argue that “it’s only 10%” but the 10% that got discriminated against, for their gender and skin color, probably don’t feel that way.

Again, white males are not being discriminated against. I know plenty of black, hispanic, asian, and women pilots who are highly qualified from various backgrounds who haven’t been given an opportunity to interview at a major airline. Furthermore, not one of them has complained and/or made excuses. They understand the competitive nature of the industry, and are patiently waiting for an opportunity to present itself.

In regards to target hiring, just because a company wishes to expand opportunities to other “sub groups” does not mean that they are not qualified. In years past, target hiring was only extended to members of the good ole’ boy’s club. People who looked like me were generally not part of that group if you know what I mean.

The whole notion of minorities having an easier route to the flight deck, and/or getting slots that should have gone to more qualified white males is a narrative we hear too often in this industry. I’ve heard it my whole career as others have tried to diminish what myself and others have achieved.

Respectfully

Sliceback,

I find many of your post to be very informative. I used your quote to illustrate a point. Please don't take my post as an attack against you or your character.

Context is everything. I was responding to someone else who implied that I was “too male and too pale” or some such.

And I have nearly four years of 121 experience.

I really don’t care. Especially with some of the snark in this thread. You must be a dream to work with.

I make $150K a year flying as much in a year as AA flies in a month. Considering that, I’ve got it made where I’m at. If they don’t call so be it. The grass is not always greener.

So my 135 rides don’t count as a training event?

I agree with you completely. Skin color should be a non-factor. I’d say most of us live our lives colorblind, but reverse racism seems to get a pass. Seems. Maybe it’s a myth.