As young as you can is ideal. But if you're asking for a cutoff age...that would depend entirely on the demographics and growth prospects of the major in question.

For example there's a lot of old guys at US...a 55 year old might still upgrade and hold a line there before he retires.

I was hired at UAL in 99 at the ripe age of 25. Thought I won the lotto ticket. Then came 9/11, bankruptcy, 2 furloughs and now a seniority integration which may not go too well. Long ago I was "supposed" to retire <#10, now probably over 1000.

Bottom line, timing is more important than age, although who really has control of either!

KC

Thanks for the quick replies by all, I really appreciate it. It appears the average is about early 30's ... Diver Driver: that's my exact goal, right at 30 is the way things would go in a dream for me. I'll take 35, if I have to. FlyAK, that's incredibly young to have already been at a Major, must be nice. You'll get the recall soon, I'm sure of it.

As for me, I feel I started too late. I just turned 21 (9 years to meet the goal!) with only 133 hours but flying like crazy and hoping to get a Commercial in the next few months and continuing to build from there. I definitely follow the advice to network as much as possible and have kept contact with quite a few Captains that I've had the chance to meet ... All say what DAL4EVER said about the timing of retirements, etc in the coming years, so I stay optimistic; however, I've gotta admit that I already feel I've missed out on something that isn't even here yet. But, I continously keep touch with all I can, hoping it helps down the road with getting that first job for building time so I can meet the next big wave.

For those who have replied so far, if you don't mind me asking more ... what age did you intially start flying? How'd you build up your time in getting to a Major?

Many thanks again.

A lot of people have talked about the luck and timing part of getting hired, however there is also the "who you know part". When we were hiring at Delta I talked to the interviewers all the time. This is how it was explained to me: (imagine the interviewer using his hands to show stacks) Here is stack number 1, this is the stack that of all the candidates that meet our requirements here at Delta. Here is stack number 2 this is the stack of candidates from stack number 1 that have letters of rec from Delta pilots. (this stack was almost the same height as stack number 1) Now here is stack number 3. A stack that is much smaller than the other two stacks. This stack is full of pilots that have letters of rec and the person that recommended them called and followed up on the status. This means that the guy that wrote the letter truly wants this person here and is staking his/her reputation, and future recommendations, on it.

As a general rule, when a company starts hiring there are a lot of familiar names in the first classes. (family, friends and internal hires) During this hiring cycle we even hired one of our crew schedulers. It will be interesting to see how he likes it on this side of the phone.

Wow...Thanks for walk down memory lane.

To Grand Canyon @ 19
To Island Air @ 21
To SkyW @ 26
To NWA @ 32
To Alaska @ 38
Back to NWA/DAL @ 42

Good Luck PS. Just because you start early doesn't mean you'll end up golden. 22 years in and I'm still at the bottom 10% of a major. All good choices at the time, but one never knows.Each time I changed it seemed like the correct thing to do. Now looking back I wish I would have gone the route of a web site creator or something else. Don't get me wrong...still having a great time, but come on now. What other industry could a person do 22 years and be at the bottom?

Baja.

Porn star maybe?

LOL...Just spit brew on laptop. Nice one Avroman!!

Baja.

btw - I said 'be at the bottom' ..... not 'be on the bottom!'

Depending on what film you are watching, they may be at someones bottom.

I started with NWA/DAL the week after my 27th birthday and i was 2nd youngest in my class. I think the avg though was 30/31. The key is to get on as early as possible. Good luck

Earlier is better, more importantly though is catching the front of the hiring wave whenever that occurs.

For instance, AMR. If it stayed the same size when would pilots start retiring in mass? Whenever that is, get hired then.

There is always a group of pilots who hit the wave right and had fast progression and quick upgrades and so forth and some at the same airline that had no progression and no upgrades.