I recently applied for the Alaska Airlines Pilot Internship. The opportunity sounds outstanding and seems to be a great experience. I am currently enrolled in an Aviation University as a Junior and have my private instrument SE with about 10 hours left in commercial. I would greatly appreciate anyone with information regarding the internship program and a gauge on how competitive the opportunity is.

Thanks!

 

Ten years ago, when I was in your position, I was offered the internship with Alaska, and I just could not pull the money together to do it. (At the time, the internship was unpaid.) Passing up the internship was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made in my career. After getting into the industry, I am realizing now how difficult it is to move from the regional to major level.

My advise, is if offered, do the internship. And put any and everything you have into the internship to make sure that you leave with an excellent reputation. It will pay dividends for you in the future..

 

With the mounds of debt I currently have, I feel your past pain. Although, if I am one of the candidates selected. I will definitely take the opportunity. That being said, I go to a small aviation college and will be competing for the internship with Riddle and UND students. I am not to sure about my chances.

Thanks for the reply, DjHubberts.

 

We have at least one guy who was an intern. He finished his college and went to the regionals. When he had the minimum quals, Alaska hired him. It never hurts to make those contacts on the 2nd floor. After all, they do the hiring.

 

Do not pass up any opportunities that may open doors to your future. Your folks will consider it as continuing education, and an entrance onto your career path.

Good luck.

 

Stupid question on internships... I know nothing about them, although I have seen AA's interns floating about ops and the schoolhouse.

I notice these nicely dressed, eager young people, and what are they doing? Distributing thousands of Jepp revisions to pilot mailboxes, and other gopher work.

Do these things end up being free slave labor, or do interns actually gain something valuable out of them? Or was this simply AA's crappy culture at work?

 

Good point, ForeverFO. I think it's amazing how many pilots in my situation (about to finish the 4 year aviation university) are saying, "I would give anything to fly X!" or " I would fly Y for free!" Because of this, employers are able to pay **** salaries and we put up with them. I think it's that type of mindset that ultimately hurts pilots.

That being said, I do believe this is a paid internship, and the benefits in contacts and relationships highly outweigh the lackey boy type work.

 

Alldaydreamer...the internship is a very valuable opportunity that you should do whatever possible to get. I did a flight operations internship with UA and they wanted you to experience all aspects of the airline. During the week I sat in on meetings regarding safety of flight items, tracked problems the crews were dealing with online, and spent several days each month traveling to different hubs. I was able to spend a couple of days in the life of a FA, maintenance worker, ramp agent, operations control in ORD, fly in the DC10 cockpit for their cargo operations in ANC and fly in the sims at the DEN training center. I also was able to ride along on a 6 day trip to Narita and Bangkok as part of the "learning experience". You are constantly around management, pilots, HR and like previously said...they are the ones that hire. If you are a good person and work hard in the internship you are usually one of the first pulled in for a pilot interview when you get the experience. As you can see on a lot of these boards you will be competing with 1000's of other pilots for a job and any little thing you can do to separate yourself is worth doing. Good luck!

 

Hmm good inside into the AA internship...I'm interviewing their soon and I have not met anyone at my university that has done it.

And to OP I know the Alaska one is competitive, I applied but still have not heard anything. Best of luck to both of us!

 

Please, do not take what I said about AA internship at any value whatsoever. For all I know, I saw 1% of what they do.

There is a "Hall of Interns" on the 2nd floor of the simulator building that has pictures and bios of all the interns that year. It seems very nice, and I think it shows that they get a beneficial experience from it.

Good luck!