For those us us with Kids who aspire to follow in our footsteps, this is a fantastic opportunity. The company can choose to hire whomever and however they want. So, I for one am glad my incoming College Freshman Aviation Major will have this opportunity. I just hope they add his university to the program within the next two years so he can apply.

We have over a thousand pilots here waiting for the DGI, a lot of them are children of current Delta pilots. These propel pilots just got slotted in ahead of a lot of them.



There is no way we can afford to lose hundreds of FO's all at once, along with over 150 DGI pilots/year.

They have not been slotted ahead of anyone. Those current pilots you speak of have a 4+ year advantage to get hired on with Delta before these students hit the streets.

Also, keep in mind these students will have a 4-6 year probation essentially. There’s nothing that will obligate Delta to take the student to mainline. Conversely, there’s nothing that requires the student to come to Delta. Either party can go their separate ways at any time.

The DGI has a two year captain requirement, and it is metered, so yes, they are ahead of them. You have to get 1000 hours SIC before you are allowed to even upgrade to start the DGI clock. Whereas in the PRopel program, 1000 hrs gets you to mainline.

^^^^THIS^^^^

“Ahead of them” implies these students are already on the Delta seniority list. Again, how many (through the DGI) will be at Delta within the 4 years before even one of these students get through? A lot more than you think. So many things in this industry will change in that time anyway.

A current new hire at Endeavor might be waiting up to 10 years for the DGI, since there is an upgrade requirement. Most of the Captains here have already been rejected in the SSP, and are stuck.



If you do the Delta interview, you should go straight to Delta IMHO. Creating a system where new hires are ahead of DGI pilots that haven't yet interviewed, is a mistake.

I wonder how much this will cost them per pilot?

All this appears to be is panic mode money throwing money at Big Ed x 2.

100-200K for the degree that used to cost under 30K not that long ago, and another 100-150K+ for ratings that not that long ago cost 20-30K. Paid into a third party system that has shown what it does to prices when more money is thrown at it by interests that never look behind the curtain.

Soon it will be way over a quarter million to produce a new hire regional FO, and no one asked how TF we got to that point, when not that long ago we had more than enough GA and training infrastructure to produce the same number of pilots at a small fraction of the cost.

But when you're busy lighting billions on fire looking through a drinking straw at next quarter's results then who cares because as Seinfeld says, "that's tomorrow guy's problem".

I hate to rain on the parade but I've had concerns recommending the career to my kids mainly because technology is moving so fast I'm not sure how long aircraft will have 2 or more pilots. Anyone else have these concerns or am I out to lunch?

It's not a lack of interest in aviation, it's a freaking economic one. The lack of scholarship or grants etc. has put this career nearly out of reach. When it costs nearly the same to go through medical school or Vet school as it does to be a pilot...i.e. $235k+ and then you get paid a whole $40k, best case scenario vs what a Doc makes after their school... well, there you go.