61 (Mom & Pop) vs 141 (Pilot Mills) in 2019
 

Traditionally, Part 121 carriers (regional airlines) favor Part 141 training due to its regimented nature, many evals (stage checks), etc. But 141 schools - especially with 2019’s rapid movement & opportunities across the industry - have a lot of relatively inexperienced instructors teaching, as flight schools tend to hire their own students once they earn their instructor certificate/ratings. Given this, it seems there would be significant value in training at Part 61 school with an experienced (possibly career) instructor, rather than a time-building instructor at a 141 school. Yet most regional airlines still prefer 141 training over 61; regionals just want everyone to reach hiring/ATP mins ASAP above all else, but most regionals will indicate a preference for 141 training if asked. Can you please help me understand why this is still the case?

I don’t mean for this to become a degree-granting flight training (college/university programs) vs stand-alone flight training debate, but instead I’d like to get thoughts from experienced pilots, especially those flying 121, on Part 141 (degree-granting or stand-alone training) vs Part 61 (stand-alone training) and why the regionals continue to prefer 141 training (even when it’s ‘babies-teaching-babies’) instead of Part 61 where there’s more experienced instructors available potentially.

1: regionals prefer that you have clean records (training/legal)
2: regionals require you meet their minimums.
3: the end.

List of regionals which prefer 141 vs 61 and vice versa:
1:
2:
3:

Thank you.

I've interviewed at:
1. SkyWest (hired)
2. Northwest (hired but didn't make it into a class before merger with DL)
3. NetJets (didn't get hired)
4. US Airways (hired)

Airlines that asked if I was part 61 or 141:

1.
2.
3.
4.

No ones cares.

No. That's a myth perpetuated by 141 schools and some of their clueless alumni. Airlines vastly prefer graduates of title 10 flight schools.

One known exception: DAL likes aviation universities. If you can't do a title 10 school, and have money to burn, that would be the next best choice for DAL. But a name-brand university, not a puppy-mill.

Never ever heard of any regional actually having a preference.

141 and 61 instructors have always been pretty much the same young, low-time, time-builders. Occasionaly (in either system) you'll find a more experienced CFI. Most of the career CFI's are free-lancers, not working for a school. Schools make money by paying low wages, which works for time-builders but not for career people.

Easy, they don't prefer 141.

I'm a p61 CFI. We're way cooler than p141 CFI's.
lol- kidding.
Kind of...
I had a student come to me requesting grass strip proficiency- guess what we did for a month?...
...not a possibility within the limiting rigidity of 141 ops...

Nobody cares where you got your ratings, just that you got them.

Interesting and thanks - there’s something of a disconnect between regional recruiters and your feedback, as each regional airline recruiter that I’ve personally asked that has a preference indicates 141 over 61. Some recruiters don’t indicate a preference, but each that does values 141 over 61. Given that there’s more senior instructors who actually teach in 61 than there is in 141 schools (where senior folks tend to end up in management/supervision roles), this surprises me. Why is there a perception from these airline recruiters that 141 (although not necessarily degree-granting programs) is better preparation for 121 than 61?

I’m not basing any of this on feedback from flight schools themselves - obviously, they’ll pat themselves on the back.

It makes sense that career/destination airlines/companies (like NorthWest, NetJets & US Airways) would have better things to use to evaluate than 61 vs 141 by that point (overall training record at a regional, any ancillary roles at regional like LCA, etc). But, among those recruiter recruiters who have expressed a preference when asked, they’ve all said 141.

Title 10 flight schools are those burning JP-8 on the taxpayer’s dime, right? (ie, military flight training)

Career & independent instructors (not flight school employees) is exactly who I’d be looking to work with in going 61.

Yes title 10 is mil.

The answer is always: it depends.

Many 141 are more regulated, more standardized, adhere to more religious schedule and are similar to the pace that you are expected to maintain in airline training. This is especially true when you get to the "top tier" 141 schools like ERAU, UND, etc. They don't let you "get by" if you aren't meeting the standards and push you to do so. This is often a huge shocker to Part 61 students when they get to an airline, sometimes they've never really had to maintain the standards, sometimes they don't know what they are or how to find them, and so on. This is probably the primary reason that the airlines prefer this. They want a reasonable guarantee that the person will make it through the airline training and not waste their time and money.

But it depends, because you can be a self-starter and do just fine in a Part 61 school. Some people need that extra "push" of the more standardized 141. Also, you are expected to be standardized and do everything the same regardless of who the other pilot is in 121. There can be a huge variance jumping in the cockpit with another instructor, especially in Part 61.

Some Part 61 schools will have some great old "stick and rudder" pilots, but it's imperative that they are up on the latest information, regulations, publications and so on. Sometimes this is left to the "jeppeson" or "king" syllabus, and sometimes these do ok, but they are often lagging when there is a change and they often don't offer the experience that you get from an instructor that teaches you from the source material. In other words, they insert their own material based on the source material, but if you have to find something in the source material on a checkride, you might have difficulty or not be able to find it. In my experience, the jeppeson/king/whatever training course outline/home ground-school courses are a red flag that the school is lazy and not able or willing to develop and teach their own course. Again, we'll be using Airmen Certification Standards for commercial certificates vs. OTS or there'll be a change to the ACS and it'll take jeppeson months or a year to change their course, and then for the school to change it'll take additional time, so it ends up being pretty far out of date from what is actually being used by examiners. This goes for Part 61 as well obviously, because many of those use these "commercially-developed" courses and they wait for the commercial provider to provide them an "update", rather than change their courses as the regulations/standards are updated. In Part 141, it should be to a higher standard and again, if the school is not developing their own course material, it reeks of laziness IME.

Consequently, sometimes the fast-paced 141 schools are situations where the blind is leading the blind, as in barely competent pilots then becoming instructors and only staying on for a few months before getting hired by an airline. Again, the top schools understand this and reinforce their material, standards, training and so on, but you'll still get a wide variety of 141 schools from ones that operate more like Part 61 to the top tier that operate like airline training.

It depends.

It should also be noted that while it may count for something to have graduated from a big shiny 141 university, flight time and ratings/certificates far outweigh where you were trained. Sometimes this is hard for the beginning pilot to grasp, because they see the more advanced type ratings and ATP certificate as being a "long way off" and they get sucked into paying a ton of money for a 141 university. Those 141 universities usually offer a great program, but the cost benefit is hard to justify. If free, part of an ROTC program or similar, that's when it could make sense. For most, it's a lot of money that could be spent or invested for greater benefit.

I'm sure the regionals also prefer astronauts and test pilot school graduates. The hiring environment at the regionals right now, and for the foreseeable future is that they need more pilots than they have applicants.
I've trained and instructed part 61 and 141. I always used the Jeppesen syllabus but found the structure and inflexibility of part 141 to be problematic in some cases. For example, a student is struggling with landings and that's the only thing holding them up from solo. Under part 141 we keep repeating the lesson until they get it. Under part 61 we can move on to some of the other requirements, so when the student figures out the landings, they have completed some of the later lessons.

What you prefer and what you can get are two different things. Nobody is getting held back from an airline career because of 61 vs 141 training. Never in my entire career has this been touched upon on a form or an interview. The biggest (and most pointless) barrier to entry for some airlines right now is the college degree. For everyone else it comes down to flight time and who you know (or who you can get a recommendation from).

I train at a 141 school. You have to have so many progress checks along the way before you can advance. In theory this is good, but not in practice.

I have accumulated at least an extra 12 hours on my PPL just waiting for the chief flight instructor to do my prog checks.

We use king ground school. You could use that at a part 61 so that is not an added benefit. I mean you could use whatever ground school you wanted at a 61.

Personally, I think whether you go with a 61 or 141 really depends on the following:

1. Cost of aircraft you will train in wet
2. Cost of instructor.
3. How well they maintain their aircrafts.
4. Availability of aircrafts/instructors.
5. Quality of instructors.
6. Are they organized?

My opinion is ask the questions above when deciding on which school to go with, whether 61 or 141.

Many thanks for taking the time & effort to share all this. I can’t envision a scenario where I end up in a degree-granting program right now (just doesn’t fit my situation/goals) and agree that it’s unfortunate to hear stories of folks who would do it all quite differently (and less costly) if they could do it over again.

Thanks much

The flexibility of 61 is a great thing in the hands of the right instructor and a gong show in the mitts of the wrong instructor - double-edged swords in many places for 141 & 61, it seems

For those teaching ATP mins today, that true. For those who are years away from ATP mins, almost anything is still possible. I want to check as many of the preferred boxes as I can to prepare for a scenario where things could get tighter, even if it’s just a temporary slowdown in hiring at my preferred regional. If I’m going to deviate from hiring authorities preferences, then I want to do it for specific reasons and more experienced & capable instructors in 61 may end up being a reason. I don’t disagree with you about a degree, but also recognize that what I think doesn’t matter much there.