"Street Hire" Civilian Stats @ Big 3
 

I wanted to see what the stats are of folks who have been hired at DAL, AAG & UAL from 2015 to now for street hires with a civilian background. I have a pretty good idea of the stats from our military brothers and sisters. I am curious to see what kind of credentials like flight time, tpic, degree/no degree, etc people with a civilian background have that made it on to a legacy.

Isn't there a recently hired thread just for this?

I wanted to start this thread being specific for Street Hires with Civilian background.

I only have one data point. I interviewed with AA a little while ago. There were 20 of us OTS types. All 20 were Mil Fighter guys. I heard recently there were a few with pure Civ background that interviewed. Maybe 2-3 out of 20 or so. My uneducated guess is that with all the Civ flow throughs they are looking to try and achieve a little more balance. Just a guess man. And it may be a bad one. Good luck!!

I can pass anecdotally that I have seen a LOT of fighter guys getting the call at AA. I think the goal is a good mix of mil/civ (see--we debate pros/cons but the airlines apparently want both!).

Connections and friends are probably important too. If you are a hard-working bro in a fighter squadron, actually try to do as much airline flying as you can and not just dropping a ton of mil leave on the company, I can see how hiring more "just like you...." would be appealing. I suspect some of that is in play as well. I wish we had more of that at FedEx....I still thing the BEST predictor of a guys worth as an employee and fellow crewmember is the testimony of the guys who have worked with him/her for years and seen the work ethic and skill in action. Tests and shrinks aside--I would never recommend a douchebag for my own company, and most of the guys I know wouldn't either. Sometimes old school ideas really work....

Generally speaking, "OTS" means "not flow" and "not military." As in, regular guys off the street, with no "advantage" (real or percieved.)

Not a flow. Not trained by Uncle Sam. Just a regular guy eating Ramen Noodles who worked his way up the ranks as a private pilot, CFI, non-affiliated regional, LLC or trash hauler.

So in your interview group, you had zero OTS.

Yep. We had zero then. I think a few in the next interview group were "OTS" but I'd have to check on that. Thanks for the clarification

Thanks for the input guys. I am one of the applicants that is all civilian background with no flows. I really enjoy reading the forums and getting some great information from you all.

Not on AA interview threads on this forum. OTS means someone who interviewed for the job and was hired, both mil and civ. It's not like the mil guys were guaranteed a job.

I know of one guy that was hired at AA OTS in 2015. He was civilian, flew for Eagle (did not flow). Was left seat there after being an FO forever, hired in 2000. Figure he flew about 800/year at Eagle, was captain for at least two years.

Impressive! I didn't think AA would hire any Eagle Rights guys. Good to see.

^^^ Some of us call that 'jumping the list.'

OTS = non flows.
OTS = mil + civ

Sounds like a go getter to me.

Al - they are. It's encouraged.

I've heard, unconfirmed, that 'jumping the list' isn't allowed anymore. IDK.

I personally know of three. All quality guys.

At the most basic, technical level, yes you're correct. Anyone NOT a flow is "technically" OTS. However, that's not at all how the term is used or understood.

Nobody said military are guaranteed a job, but the indisputable fact remains that they DO get invited to interview far faster than a regular non-mil candidate, and they DO get preferential treatment during the entire process over a regular civilian.

Just read the "Who's Been Hired" thread. Orleans any of the countless Facebook groups. Countless mil pilots getting a shot at the majors with only a few thousand hours, while many more equally qualified, if not more so, regular civilian pilots get ignored. Thousands of hours of PIC, widebody, passenger ops, etc etc totally ignored while any F16 pilot with low 4 digit flight time gets an interview.

This gist of this thread is who's getting hired at what legacy and who's not in a "special preferences" group.

American has made it very difficult for non-Mil, non-flow pilots to get on board. Not impossible, but incredibly unlikely.

Delta, a little bit easier, but still very difficult to get that phone call.

But for guys like me, veteran (not a pilot) brought up through the civilian ranks working through various regionals, ACMI trash haulers, LCC's and ULCC's, the ONLY Legacy that's giving us "off the street" guys a fair shot seems to be United.

I wasn't going to but you're Bernie Sanders "fair shot" whining made me bite.

How long was your longest training contract with any of those?

Delta is/was hiring almost 50% or in that neighborhood pure civilian. A sign of a weak individual is blaming others for their lack of success.

He may have worded that wrong. I think what he meant was, statistically UAL is the best shot based on the hiring stats, ratios and numbers thus far.

I viewed his post as good information and found it useful.

I don't think his original intention was to blame others for anything, sounds like he was interested in a specific statistical analysis of hired pilots, and I am interested in that as well: mil and flow vs regular civilian (non-mil, non-flow). Just trying to figure out what the odds are, that's all.

I thought the question was OTS civilian not including flow. I would wager that close to 50% number is made up of a lot of flow through or preference hiring.
I too am curios at what the rate is of a civilian with no flow or preferences from a regional has as of today.

I agree, until the last post about not getting a fair shot. Lost all credibility at that point.

And I did just get done going through the first 20 and last 20 pages of the recently hired thread. It seemed to be pretty even in mil/civilian and what was getting guys hired is pretty consistent.

I think you need to look at the stats a little closer. Delta publishes a breakdown once a month. 50% military. 50% civilian but half of those civilians are former military. Meaning they went to a regional for some period of time. So basically 50% military, 25% military/civilian, 25% flow/OTS. The Compass and Endeavor flows/interviews are part of that 50% civilian. OTS is still difficult at Delta unless you go to certain conferences/volunteer activity.

Do you have the most recent email with their hiring stats? The one I have is old and shows exactly 40% pure civilian hired. I don't know of any stats tracking flows vs not flow.

It's published monthly as part of the Monthly updates. Can be found on Deltanet. I think the Compass flows are complete so now it's just Endeavor "flowing". They don't break down flows to OTS in the updates. It includes Compass/Endeavor. That's why the numbers are deceiving.

I don't feel like I got preferential treatment through the entire process. Took me 12 years just to get the hours and while they don't compare to a heavy guy/gal they were fairly difficult hours. Just my experience / opinion.

Sorry, I know it's easy to mix up the terminology.

But the Pinndeavor SSP is NOT a flow, just a pref interview. Although once they got though the senior guys that really wouldn't have had a chance anyway, the acceptance rate has gone up considerably it seems.

But yes, they do have a certain amount of allocated slots. But STILL have to do day 1 ONLY of the interview process.

So they're kind of between a "flow" and an OTS in that regard.

Whereas, the initial numbers at AA for 2016 were something like 750-800 training positions that need to be filled. Roughly 500-ISH are expected to be taken up with what's left of the furlough hold outs before their drop dead date combined with the ACTUAL FLOWS from the regional partners.

So it was roughly ~250-300ISH OTS at AA this year.

If we were to take a "SWAG" at a 50/50 split of mil civ ratio, that would be about 125-150 lucky, no poop, civilian OTS hires at AA for the year.

The amount of training slots/furloughs/flows are simply based on what AA published late last year or early this year. I believe someone posted the letter sent out in one of the AA hiring threads. And it had the standard "AA has 15000 apps on file with 12000 internal recs" or whatever.

We ALL KNOW those numbers could change.

The SWAG was, well, just a SWAG. Could skew either direction on the mil/civ split of OTS at AA.

I didn't think I had to go into so much detail. I thought by putting "flow" in quotation marks people would understand. Maybe I should have mentioned Mesaba as well. Sorry.

In response to the Bernie Sanders "fair shot" nonsense, that's not at all what I said or what I implied. But I realize this is an election year and people tend to lose their chit over everything and anything. I'm not a millennial blaming others, it is what it is.

But what "it" is is quite simply, American Airlines has practically shut the door on guys who are not a flow and who do not have a military pedigree. Plain and simple. Yes, a trickle of straight civilian pilots make the cut. Again. A trickle. It was brought up in a different thread on this board that AA plans on hiring about 200 OTS guys this year, whereas Delta was planning the same number in two months.

I know dozens of guys here at Spirit who meet and exceed ALL of the requirements, who have thousands of hours of safe, non-eventful flying in their logbooks, thousands of hours of PIC time, who would kill for a chance at AA, yet can't even get an invite to interview, while low-time military pilots are getting scooped up by the dozens.

If that's not the definition of "fair shot" then I have no idea what is.

If you're a non-military non-flow pilot your chances of getting on to any of the three Legacies, based on tons and tons of anecdotal evidence on this board as well as various Facebook groups, seems to be as follows:

AA- Not impossible, but sharing the same zip code.
Delta- Somewhat easier.
United- Best chance of getting a call for an interview.

Sorry, wasn't trying to bust your balls.

But for some reason, people STILL think there's a flow. People are also under the impression that Pinndeavor is a flow. Especially when they read it on places like here, PPW, or whatever else.

With dozens of threads addressing this I still don't understand why this keeps coming up. Yes, it appears that AA is snatching up low time (in your eyes) FIGHTER guys. Maybe you've missed it the dozens of times this has been brought up before, not all hours are created equal. These are some of the largest corporations in the world, are you saying they don't know how to hire the best employees? Guess your F'd now that United just opened up a flow with XJT.

I also would like an answer to what your longest training contract was during your career.

That's not flow, nor a pref interview either.

My mistake, it's a Career Pathway Program (CPP) offering guaranteed interviews for legacy Expressjet pilots.

I sense you're an angry bitter person. Maybe try running. Helps clear your head.

My longest training contract? 4 years, courtesy of Uncle Sam. Now tell me what that has to do with anything relevant in this thread?

No, seriously. What's your angle? We haven't "paid our dues" or some other nonsense?

I'm very happy, just don't like being blamed for someone else not getting what they feel they deserve. Funny how people deflect their shortcomings by calling people names that would describe them perfectly.

My angle is just because mil guys are getting hired with less hours than what YOU deem worthy doesn't make them less qualified. Of mine and every other guys resume I've seen, the hours section takes up about 10% or less of space. In any interview the time spent discussing hours is about 3 minutes. See a trend? But if you want to keep focusing on hours, go for it. I've paid my dues and do not need to justify it to anyone as long as a hiring department agrees. The only guys I've seen ***** about paying dues are civilian guys. Funny how that is. Good luck in your search for why someone got what you and your friends deserved.

Funny thing indeed. Also funny how you immediately jump on the defensive when I'm simply stating the facts. No blame was being assigned, like I said before, it is what it is.

And what it is is that American has largely decided to ignore the immense pool of highly qualified candidates out there and focus instead on a different pool of candidates entirely. And while I'm sure that 2000 hours of flying CAP missions over Durka-Durkistan directly relates to skills and abilities in the 121 world, I'm equally certain that 5000, 7500 or 10,000 hours of flying an Airbus or Boieng incident free into LGA or ORD would also translate well into a well-rounded candidate.

And that's perfectly fine. Again. It is what it is, and nobody here is angry or bitter or seeking blame for percieved shortcomings. Everyone knows you zoomies are the best of the best of the best of the best (of the best), and you said it yourself; these large corporations, they certainly know how to hire the best (of the best) employees.

The OP asked a question. I provided an answer. You took offense to it. And you still didn't answer my question.

The whole system is designed to reinforce their filthy addiction to cheap regional labor. They will hire as many military pilots as possible in the time of pilot shortage, because this forces civilian pilots to flow through their regional feed in order to make it to the mainline. That's the whole point of them offering increased flow-through programs to their regional airlines in exchange for decade-long contracts that maintain indentured-servitude wages with 1% yearly raises. If there was no pilot shortage, they wouldn't be hiring military pilots either, except at the regional airlines. They will be cold and dead before they give up on this dream for themselves and their shareholders.

The whole debate about whether they prefer a healthy mix of experience, etc. is irrelevant.

I think there is much truth to your post! Also Gringo, your posts have been informative and VERY correct...I have little to no dog in the perceived fight put on by fishfreighter or fishforfun ..whatever he calls himself, I am almost retired and am at Delta, having been a 747 Capt for 17 years, and now on narrowbodies due to international downsizing...So I fly with new hires, as do my friends at American, and United. Gringo provides very correct info.

Nope, not even a guaranteed interview.

As it was explained to me, and as I read the details I was sent, and in the words of an acquaintance, "it's simply a guaranty to initiate the selection process". Which is the same process as an OTS, with some additional caveats internal to XJT

As in, if a candidate's profile isn't acceptable to UAL based on a bunch of vague non descript criteria, they don't even get to initiate the process. If one does meet the criteria, but doesn't get through the HPI, they don't get the interview, which ISN'T guaranteed in the first place. JUST LIKE AN OTS picked out of the stack.

Now, compare that to the Pinndeavor/DAL SSP program, that ACTUALLY DOES guaranty an interview. As well as waive a tad bit of criteria that would/could exclude a pure plucked out of the stack PURE OTS non pref interview candidate.

There are a few prolific examples.