I agree with this. And in addition, while a candidate may not score more points for more total hours once the threshold is reached, I would imagine they would score more points for more PIC Jet Time (as an example). In my case, I'm approaching 8,000 total, however my PIC Jet Time is under 2,000. Maybe the system gives points to those who have >2,000 PIC Jet. Who really knows. What I really want is more PIC Jet (not total time), but obviously the only way for my PIC Jet to go up, is for my total time to also go up.

 

Well, good!! I hope that is how they are doing it. At OBAP Brian Quigly drew a graph on my resume showing me a bell curve of the pilots they are hiring and who they want. The top of that curve was 5500 hours.

 

AA
Jan interview Mar start
2700 Mil
2300 PIC
Attack and VIP background
1 x job fair

CJOs from UPS and AA

 

Agreed, thresholds for all qualifications and hours. But the big points come from checking as many boxes as possible. LCA, Director or Saftey, Chief Pilot etc. These are the big point earners, especially on the civilian side.

 

Congrats and good choice. Nice to have more than one option. Good luck at AA.

 

Why would they ever admit this? Opens them up to getting sued

 

For what??

 

Not only does it not smell right the facts don't support it either. DL's posted their averages for CIV, CIV/MIL, and MIL. AA's told us what their average was.

AA - 5556 TT (no other data given).

DL -

# TT PIC

CIV 502 7656 4126

C/M 233 4938 2955

MIL 728 3119 2249


There's no way the bell curve stops 344 hrs above the average. That means, with a standard bell curve, that the minimum civilian new hire would have 7212 hrs.

None of this shows the additional duties, union work, or other airline industry, professional, or civic leadership boxes checked. Type ratings, qualifications/experience vs age, vs peers, type of flying, etc, etc.

Or how many times the candidates presented themselves formally to the recruiting teams.

I spoke with a candidate recently. He's an airline employee. His airline's recruiters know him by name. He's been told "you can't just walk up and hand us a resume. You have to present yourself at job fairs."

There's some unknown value at the job fairs. And, at least at his airline, walking into the recruiting office, again and again, doesn't help.

Here's another number that jumps out at me, 16% of the DL numbers above are civ/mil. Anyone think 16% of a major airline's pilot corps has a civ/mil background before they got hired? I'd guess it's low single digits which seems to indicate that getting civilian, and I'd highly suggest 121, flying might be a great resume kicker for separating military pilots. It's a learning curve and IMO a 121 regional job will prepare you better for the big job better than other choice out there. That's a fairly common belief amongst other recruiting volunteers so I wouldn't be surprised if the people that set up the various recruiting filtering programs assign value to that.

 

The "smell right" comment was about an 8000 hr limit. There is some data that older guys, which would be linked to higher time guys, struggle with new a/c training. Where that cross-over IDK but anyone try teaching their grandparents something new? Yes, higher time guys could be grandparents. I know my peers are.

 

TT is a terrible determinant of age. There are plenty of low time guys in their 50s and high-time guys in their 20s and 30s. I'm pretty sure that people who spend all day looking at applicants know that...

I believe the whole "too much time" myth
comes frome the fact that as hours increase, the representative numbers in the applicant pool decrease. Therefore, fewer applicants are chosen at higher time because there's simply fewer of them. I highly doubt (and have yet to see proof) that it is being used as a discriminator.

At least I hope not.