Apparently times have change considerably since the 1960's regarding hiring of airline pilots, whether it be the Regional or Major Carriers.

I went through two airline hiring processes (getting hired both times, BTW), and they were NOT a walk in the park. I had guys wash out during both processes because they just couldn't 'hack it' like they needed to. But, back then, there was a larger pool of pilots to draw from I guess, so the airlines could be a little more demanding. While the first airline I went with only had a one month new hire program, the second airline I was with had a FOUR month program. After four months, they could tell if you had the "right stuff" or not. And, back then you flew the actual aircraft, not a sim. It was easy to see who was going to make it and who wasn't.

Glad I'm out of this racket !!

 

I am a CFI with 1200 hours.

I graduated from a large and prestigeous aviaiton university a year ago. Had you asked me a year ago (when I had 500 hours) wether or not I was ready to fly an airliner, of course I would have told you yes, and would have taken an airline job had it been offered me.

Now with only 700 more hours under my belt over the last year, I have learned A LOT...really taken my skills and my knowledge to the next level. I heartily support the concept of ATP minimums/ATP license to join the airlines.

On a completely different note...I now make more as a mostly-full time flight instructor than any second-year FO on a regional airline...and I'm home every night.
hmm. Them jets are shiny though!

 

I worked at Continental Express and Delta, neither had a sim ride in the interview. In my class of 40 at Coex, 100% passed and hit the line. In my Delta class 1 out of the 30 didn't make it to the line. I think a lot of airlines have found a sim ride as a difficult means to judge the quality of the pilot since you're not using the airplane that pilot has been flying.

Thats what I was told at Coex, not sure what Delta's thoughts were.

 

Sim Rides can do a coulple of things:
1. Evaluate the pilot's instrument scan (especially important for regional carriers hiring lower time pilots)
2. Evaluate the pilot's CRM capabilities (perhaps more important for major airlines who assume the pilot has the required stick and rudder skills to fly their jet)

 

Simulator rides worry me. I haven't even started the process yet but it is one of the things that worry me the most. I hate to think that my future job could be judged on a single ride in an airplane that I've never even sat in the cockpit of before and then be expected to fly it to any level of proficiency. If they want to judge my instrument scan, BAW skills or CRM - I'm rather invite them into my sim for the evaluation.

USMCFLYR

 

The sim ride is more about finding out if you are who you say you are, eg a heavy driver with 5000hr...do you fly like one, do you call for the correct checklists eg in sequence, do you recover from a mistake. The expectations of a pilot with low time, would be completely different and based on other criteria. I didn't know until I was sitting in class that the majority of my classmates had purchased time in a sim to prep for the sim ride. Also if you came from a glass background we would put you in a glass sim...we didn't try to play stump the dummy. We had a fairly even mix of military(fighter and heavy), civ, low and high time...it seems to work.

First company we had 2 pilots wash out in my class...one could fly, but couldn't land...the other could land, but couldn't fly...together they were ok.

 

Standards.

Skyhigh

 

Skybolt, your post is spot on and I don't think anyone disagrees with the sentiment. ATP as a minimum standard is great. But after looking into my crystal ball, I predict a serious problem. However, there are many changes on the horizon that many of us do not see coming, no matter how hard look. It’s still fun to try.

Allow me to paint a picture.

It has been remarked and become generally accepted that regional level flying has become a career peak for many pilots. At the company I work for, it is especially true. You can point to a variety of reasons for this, but I will not spend too much time in this post on that issue.

The senior captains at regional can break 100k a year if they work really hard and are creative. Their monthly guarantee will approach it. I don’t know an average, but looking at the pay calculator and using the highest paid senior captain, I calculate about 92k pre tax, pre insurance, pre retirement. How much do they take home? I don’t know. Is 60% a good guess? 55k? Maybe 70% for 64k? For arguments sake, 55k-64k take home pay AT THE HIGH END.

Now, imagine you are a 17-20 year old (or your child, nephew/niece or friends child) is pondering their post high school life plans. They Google airline pilot pay. APC comes up first. Maybe they look at Delta, AA, or FedEx and their eyeballs get big. A little more research later, maybe they see some news links. The story is getting out there that pilots do not live the glory life that has been painted from the past. Some younger folks will decide to take the gamble anyway (let’s face it, the best pilot jobs are still awesome for pay and QOL).

A new reality IS being painted, however. Some will decide it’s not worth the investment for the return. I am guessing based off my crystal ball image (more like a foggy magic 8 ball), that more and more will see flight training cost are going up while the pay and QOL is going down. My guess is that flight training cost will become prohibitive to entering the career. A cash strapped, but talented person will more likely take the medicine, engineering, military, law, etc…route. Even though medicine and law are expensive educations and give no guarantees, hard work will still pay off.

The airlines will still have to staff their airlines. How will they do this if the supply is going down but demand is staying the same or rising? Are they still going to depend on the same flight schools we have today? I just don’t see more affordable flight schools being profitable competitive businesses without subsidizing. That potential issue opens up a whole new can of worms.

The only thing I can see happening is that the current method of flight training has to change simply because of cost. You already see some morphing in training syllabus at places (like ERAU) by becoming more simulator heavy.

Beyond the initial training, there is now the issue of attaining ATP minimums. How are these students going to attain ATP minimums cost effectively? I mean cost that are justified by reasonably expected returns.

CFI jobs? That’s traditional. I still have a problem with the idea of instructors and mentors being only a couple hundred hours and maybe a couple years older than their students. After looking back, I blame **** poor instructors on ¼ - ½ my flight training cost. God knows how much I cost my own students.

The military will NOT supply enough pilots in the future to staff the airlines needs, not even at the mainline level.

Multi Pilot License? That is certainly NOT in keeping with your “ATP minimums” sentiment. I personally think the idea of MPL is ****. However, I am not very confident that flight training cost can be cut to a level that justifies the current system/method of becoming a professional pilot. MPL seems like a natural progression. Chances are, pilots with less real air time will still fill our flight decks.

We are still a few good years from seeing any huge morphing, but these things don’t change overnight. They are gradual. My prediction is less and less FBO style flight schools and larger flight training centers that are heavily simulator based. The cost of fuel alone almost dictates this (Yes, it will go way up again). An airline could own and operate a program like this. It would reduce flight training cost, allow them to screen their candidates and allow them to pay their pilots low wages. If someone doesn’t have to spend a small fortune to get the job they are more likely to have an opportunity to do it and accept lower pay.

What will happen to flight instruction? Obtaining a CFI CFII and MEI is very expensive and arduous task. Hopefully flight instruction will take its rightful place as respectable career or end of career profession. Less flight schools = less flight instructors. To be a cost effective instructor you also have be a talented instructor. That’s tougher done than said.

My predictions don’t even take into account what influence FAAs NextGen program or what E170s and E190s will have. Regardless if my prediction is accurate or not, there will be fundamental changes in “how things are done.” We know this because the industry has been in a constant state of change over its entire history. It will be different than what we are used to.

 

OK.

You've repeatedly stated before that it takes a special kind of person to sit on their ass and watch the DME click down, but you've also repeatedly stated that the only reason you got into aviation in the first place was to get hired at Alaska Airlines and do exactly that.

I get it, any booger eating moron can fly an airliner. It bears pointing out however, that your credibility is somewhat lacking in this area since you yourself couldn't get hired to do it. Which begs the question; are the standards too low, or just different from what they should be in your world?

I'm not particularly trying to be a dick, but you are on an infinite playback loop on this subject, and from where I sit it sounds less like a reasonable critique of the aviation industry, and more like a continuous whine about your failed career track. Sorry it didn't work out - but you aren't making any new observations here. Let it go and move on.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by SebastianDesoto

Skybolt, your post is spot on and I don't think anyone disagrees with the sentiment. ATP as a minimum standard is great. But after looking into my crystal ball, I predict a serious problem.

Mr. Sebastian, your exactly right. Barriers to entry into this profession are going to be such that it turns good people away or good people won’t even be able to enter in as getting a $70,000 loan to a job that pays $17,000 won’t probably cut it in this day and age.

I was talking with my university looking at ways to make training more affordable after the oil spike sent a dual C172 to nearly $200/hr. By the way, I was never older than any of my students until I got to my last year of four instructing. My favorite idea was the simulator, although not cheap per hour, it’d save a lot of money and significantly increases the quality of training in my opinion. I’d loved to have had one of those Frasca full visual sims when I was teaching, holy cow that’d been nice. But while simulators are great for teaching they’ll be horrible for CFIs to build time. So if 1500 TT (i.e. ATP) becomes a minimum to get hired to fly a B1900D or a E170 and PIC Part 135 minimums stay at 1200 TT its going to suck for the CFIs out there to build time and start paying their aviation debt off. And you’ll probably start to see the rich kid that bought a VFR only Apache get hired long before the more qualified instructor. That’s my beef with hiring mins to become a Part 121, just seems odd that a 2-day crash course at ALL ATP puts a check in a box and somehow shows a higher level of quality than the 1000 hour instructor who did your training. Its probably why ATP instructors call the ATP ride a joke. You go to them, they go to the "right" DE, and there's your ATP. Your so much more qualified then you were 3 days ago.

If ever the ATP became the minimum to become an airline pilot I think small piston single-engine and twin-engine aircraft, such as a B58 or C310, flying freight only should have an exemption to allow PIC’s to have less than 1200 TT. Say 600 TT with an SIC and 800 TT without.

I’m going to stick to my opinion, the problem is not a plethora of pilots, the problem is a plethora of jobs thanks to scope relaxation at the expense of both mainline and regional pilots. So now that major airlines aren’t hiring because their replacing their flying with CRJ900s and E-Jets the “pay your dues” wages of the regional industry have gone from temporary to long term. That sucks.