The title of the thread isn't even spelled correctly. It's not "failue." I believe you mean to spell it "disgruntled." Or perhaps "unprepared?" Certainly it's "trolling," in any event.

 

Surely you don't mean to sound like it's the training dept's fault that people can't pass?

 

If 60% - 70% of new hires are failing either the training department or hiring department is at fault.

 

I believe there was a large upswing in Q400 fails when the company switched to their Brad Lambert approved SuperSaver(tm) CBT course they just tossed at the new hires and shortened the ground school to 4 DAYS. But look at the savings!

The training department was vehemently opposed to it but was told to go pound sand by management. They are an absolute group of rock stars with decades of experience on the dash8 (all models) and they were effectively hamstrung overnight.

In combination with that, we drastically lowered our hiring standards and would literally take anyone who was qualified on paper. We probably still do. "Just fill classes" were the orders given by BL. Well, some of the people we've hired can't even use an iPad correctly. The Q400 program at Horizon Air is the most challenging airplane and flight operation an airline pilot could ever experience in their career, and we threw these poor b@stards into the sea with cement shoes and expected them to tread water in a very short amount of time.

Another "perfect storm" summoned and facilitated by corporate greed.

The next perfect storm? Street captains on the Q400 with no experience paired with a new hire and flying on a really bad winter day.

 

I used to live in Spokane. The ice fog at GEG was sort of notorious. You might be in for interesting times, in the Chinese curse sense of the expression....

 

The 60-70 percent seems be a bit high but it is common knowledge that 5-8 pilots a week are being summoned for conferences for lack of progression in training, failure of MV or LOE CQ or Qual. A number result in separation from the company. It wasn't all that long ago 1 every couple months was the norm.

 

It’s not just at QX. All regionals are seeing this spike in training failures or extra training needed..

 

well, i’ll keep you posted. Ground School starts today, so i’m getting ready to start drinking from the firehose. It has been an insane amount to process via CBTs. Lots of time on the iPad.

That being said, all the regionals may be in a training crunch to a.) get people b.) get them through training and on line. As stated earlier, not the best way, but they are not being given much of a choice.

 

Perhaps it’s the quality of the applicants. I know one class at a competitor where they were told on Friday they would get a simple 20 question limitations exam on Monday. 6 out of 10 failed it despite a passing grade being only 80%. Most majors require 100% on any limitations exams or orals.

 

Sooooo true. You can’t blame all of the failures on the QX instructors. It is common knowledge that the failure/re-train rate has been hovering around 50%. As the well for pilots runs dry, 70% should not be a surprise. The condensed Q400 course is a big challenge for even the most experienced and talented pilots.
QX instructors have asked many times for more sim and ground school. In the interest of corporate greed, Air Group continues to tell them “no”. Although instructors want candidates to be successful, they do have an obligation to the flying public to hold pilots to a high standard. I believe they do.