Very few go to the majors, especially a legacy, without a significant amount of TPIC. The handfull that do are either very well connected or they can check off a certain gender or race box on the app.

 

 

With your dedication and perseverance the legacies should be competing to hire you. Most important is that you've found a balance between family and career. Good luck with which ever path your career takes you.

 

Consider yourself lucky.
When you where hired at US Air, I had about twice you quals plus 1500 TPIC and I still haven't gotten an interview at a major.

 

Hiring requirements by airlines are cyclical. In the ‘60s and ‘80s, pilots were hired in droves by the majors with very low time and some without college.

In the '80s, Delta picked up a few pilots without college, which was unheard of, during the hiring spree. In 1989, American Airlines hired one of the youngest chaps at the age of 20, knowing he would have turned 21 before is F/E rate ride would have occurred. Some new hires with the majors in the late '80s had zero turbine time too!

Well folks, the minimum requirement pendulum has once again swung the other way... many more seats than pilots available. Was the Colgan Airline crash the final straw for TPIC preference by the powers that be? Or will the days of the ‘60s come upon us again when a chap was hired with a commercial, multi-engine rating? Hard to say. Time will tell when this so called theoretical pilot shortage hits the industry. Will airlines establish universities to train and groom pilots from ground zero in their own image? Time will tell… time will tell.

 

I think we have seen requirements creep.

Years ago ANY jet time was an asset. The BIG stumbling block was a 4-year college degree.

With 1000's of regional guys applying management put in place 1,000 hr TPIC requirement to whittle down the inbox. Nowadays US Airways also wants training in the last five years, FlyDubai wants glass time.

It's all about supply and demand. Management will trash the 1,000 TPIC in an instant in order to keep their planes flying.

 

PIC is a weird thing in that yes, it obviously helps to have it to get hired, the more, the merrier. BUT...

My avatar here is ForeverFO, and it means what it says. I was hired with about 1350 TPIC, maybe 200 SIC, but it was fighters and I had the standard list of leadership roles accomplished; IP, 4-ship lead, mission commander, etc.

I still have that 1350 PIC, but TT must be close to 16,000. Am I a better pilot now than I was when hired? Of course, waaay better, having been part of a crew that's been everywhere and done everything at different times, but none of it was PIC.

If I was HR and had a guy with 6,000 right-seat 121 hours but zero PIC, I'd probably hire him. But I'm not, and most companies want the PIC, I gues because it demonstrates that yes indeed, the guy can do it.

 

Meh, US Airways has Hired a lot of folks recently with zero TPIC time, United has already hired a few. I don't think it's as important as it used to be considering the 2 year upgrades at the regionals has been gone for a while.

As far as the Majors go, or Nationals whatever you call them, I was hired at Spirit without, Jetblue hires without it, so does Virgin America.

 

I went to a job fair one time and talked to United, and one of the first things the recruiter noticed on my résumé was that I had TPIC featured prominently. In my case, it's more than 500 but still less than 1000, but in so many words, he said, "Don't worry about that." He went on to explain that they're aware that upgrade opportunities have been scarce the past few years and many people have been "stuck" as regional FOs.

Of course, they haven't called me yet, so...?

 

"Don't worry about that."