Airline Pilot Central Forums - Shot down by SWA

-----Original Message-----
From: SWA Hiring <[email protected]>
To: '[email protected]' <[email protected]>
Sent: Tue, Apr 1, 2014 5:28 pm
Subject: Southwest Airlines First Officer Position

April 1, 2014

Capt. F. R. Dogg
Eagle Ridge
Mountain, Colorado

Dear F. R. Dogg:

** You may disregard this letter, if you have been selected for a class date with Southwest Airlines. Due to our various postings for the same position, you may have submitted your application more than once.**

Thank you for your interest in the First Officer position at Southwest Airlines during the September 2013 application window. Southwest is fortunate to receive interest from many qualified Candidates for the limited number of open Pilot positions at a given time. At this time, the September 2013 application window is closed and all interviews have been conducted for our First Quarter 2014 class dates.

After careful consideration, you were not selected at this time to move forward in our hiring process. You are welcome to apply when Southwest has First Officer openings in the future, through Southwest Airlines Careers during a future Pilot hiring event.

We wish you success in your career endeavors and thank you again for your interest in Southwest Airlines.

Sincerely,

Southwest Airlines People Department
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reply:

Dear Southwest Airlines,
Thank you for your timely response to my September 2013 pilot application to your company. It is clear to me now that interviews for your First Quarter 2014 class dates are over now that the first quarter of 2014 has been over for two days. I was beginning to wonder if they were going to interview me and pre-date my class. Obviously, with the tens of thousands of applications you are sifting through, a response to a lowly civilian freight dog is, by necessity, at the very bottom of your priority list and I am thankful that you have left the opportunity for me to reapply when your window is reopened.

Clearly, your HR department has made the smart move to pass me over due to my lack of qualifications and experience. While I would have thought that my 11.380 total hours of flight time (7,190 in heavy jets) and my six type ratings earned over a six year career at American Eagle, fourteen years at DHL Airways and now three years at Atlas Air, along with a record of no accidents, incidents, violations, DUI's or training failures would have been adequate for at least an invitation for an interview, I know now that the Southwest bar is set to a much higher standard than I could ever hope to reach. Little did I realize that in the midst of a pilot shortage that there would be such a flood of super funny space shuttle pilots ahead of me in line at Southwest.

That said, however, with inexplicable clairvoyance, your HR department must have foreseen my confusion over the abrupt change of personality of the Southwest culture and determined that I would not fit in there. This bewilderment of mine would certainly have become embarrassingly evident during an interview as I most assuredly would have been unable to reconcile the armchair emergency scenario lap dance with the new hierarchy established within your pilot corps that was established when Southwest merged with AirTran in 2010. Quite honestly, my perception of Southwest Airlines was far different from what it really is. Previously, my understanding of the company that Herb Kelleher founded was one of unmitigated success and profits propelled by a corporate culture of camaraderie, cleverness, and fun. Little did I realize that the real key to the success was a hidden undercurrent of elite one-upmanship and an uncompromising ability to climb up the backs of any pilot group that dared to let themselves be merged with SWA.

So, it is with sad eyes that I watch the proud Southwest fleet of 737's sail off into the sunset without me in their ranks for I realize now that I will never be a part of an airline with a lifetime of continuous profits run by clever and faultless managers and staffed by hilarious astronauts with perfect safety records.

With wistful resignation, I remain,

Capt. F. R. Dogg