Originally Posted by DontLookDown

Out of curiosity, what does everyone think will happen to the flow program if an AA airplane ever crashes and it turns out the pilot flying it had a criminal history, a few checkride failures and only a high school education?

Then the media goes on to explain how that pilot wouldn’t have been hired at Delta or United, but AA has a “flow” program set up that allows pilots with those kinds of backgrounds to still get hired.

That could be a PR nightmare. I think AA is counting on the fact that once the flow program gets established it will take a pilot 8-10 years to flow.

Being able to explain that a pilot has to prove themselves by maintaining a clean record for 10 years would restore everyone’s faith in the AA hiring practices should the worst ever happen. I think that AA will always try to balance making the flow process as long as possible, while keeping it just quick enough to still be an effective recruitment tool

Originally Posted by HW1018

I would venture to say, that pilots WITHOUT a criminal record and WITHOUT check ride failures have crashed airplanes too...just study the accidents involving major airlines over the last 50 years, I am almost certain a majority of those pilots did not have a criminal back ground, check ride failures, and had 4 years degrees...but they still crashed an aircraft too. Just because someone has had set backs in their careers, doesn't mean they will crash an airplane or be any less compentent.

Originally Posted by ItnStln

How does only having a high school education or having a criminal history correlate to being a bad pilot? I can see a few checkride failures, but that can just be someone who was nervous or a bad test taker.

Originally Posted by DontLookDown

It doesn’t correlate.

Ive come to understand that doesn’t matter though. Public perception matters more than reality.

The traveling public needs to think that the person driving their airplane is very intelligent, always responsible and highly competent as a pilot. That’s why companies prefer to hire college educated folks, with clean backgrounds and no checkride failures. It eliminates potential headlines should anything ever go wrong.

Originally Posted by DontLookDown

Out of curiosity, what does everyone think will happen to the flow program if an AA airplane ever crashes and it turns out the pilot flying it had a criminal history, a few checkride failures and only a high school education?

Then the media goes on to explain how that pilot wouldn’t have been hired at Delta or United, but AA has a “flow” program set up that allows pilots with those kinds of backgrounds to still get hired.

That could be a PR nightmare. I think AA is counting on the fact that once the flow program gets established it will take a pilot 8-10 years to flow.

Being able to explain that a pilot has to prove themselves by maintaining a clean record for 10 years would restore everyone’s faith in the AA hiring practices should the worst ever happen. I think that AA will always try to balance making the flow process as long as possible, while keeping it just quick enough to still be an effective recruitment tool

Originally Posted by Varsity

Why would a regional crashing with the same credentials be any different? Passengers have no idea that the subcontracting circus at the regionals exist. "operated by go jet" means nothing to them when they buy a ticket on united and see a united paintjob.

Originally Posted by daOldMan

Doesn't really work like that. Everyone knows of the "Colgan" crash and the "Comair Crash". The airlines are quick to disassociate from the mainline carriers and the media follows suit.

Originally Posted by Flyinguy

Though this may be very true, it wouldn’t surprise me if AA attempted to blame the “flow” as Amazon tried to blame the guy who crashed and “lied” to them. But the reality is they passed the companies check rides, and that is a legal/PR cop out.

But having so many flow pilots on property, it would look bad if AA threw them under the bus, so I kind of doubt they would.

Originally Posted by PiedmontFlyer

You're not wrong about perception, but the media could just as easily obsess with whether the college educated hypothetical pilot in the hypothetical accident was going through a divorce, was in debt, ate Wheaties for breakfast....it's a wide, deep rabbit hole.

Originally Posted by DontLookDown

The difference is that a company can’t be hung out by the media for things that can’t be used as discriminators during hiring.

It’s illegal to inquire about a persons marital status, much less the quality of their marriage, when making hiring decisions.

An airline could perform a credit check and factor that into things, but that would be an ineffective discriminator. They can’t realistically expect someone to have a Commercial pilot certificate and a bachelors degree without also having debt. Military personnel and people born into rich families are the only ones who can pull that off.