12oclockHi

This topic seems to have gone cold. Is this to say PSA no longer warrants a reputation for high attrition during initial training? Please share recent experiences and opinions based on current conditions, not what was, or believed to have been a couple years ago.

TallFlyer

I'd be surprised if the initial training failures at PSA were ever outside the industry average. I've said it before, but it makes no business sense to let examiners with a supposed axe to grind take it out on new hires.

As with all initial training at this level, it's a steep hill to climb for most, but show up, do it how they ask you to do it, cooperate and graduate. "PSA Pay, PSA Way."

All of that said, your number one criteria for picking a regional airline is picking the one you can drive to work to, eventually. APC rumors about new hire training failures shouldn't even be in the top 10.

sailingfun

I suspect a increase in attrition during training was the result of a decrease in the quality of applicants. PSA did the right thing and maintained their standards. Other regionals gave way to much extra training to put a body in a seat. As the military long ago proved that's a concept that will bite you in the butt badly later.

fliesonthewall

Nope! It's the ground instructors who "have an axe to grind", due to their being "medicalled out" or never having a chance to flow to AA. SIP evaluators who are ****ed off due to the new hires who are cleared to fly.

ThatChecks

i was a 2022 hire, there were a few in my class who had to redo their MV or LOE. But nobody washed out of training entirely

sailingfun

Why would a training department allow instructors to act in that way? Instructors like that are usually removed. It's not in the companies interest to wash people out. Tough choices do need to be made at times to insure safety but a culture of washing people out for no reason I can't believe existed.

tallpilot

Who knows? Scott Horne busted 90% of captain upgrades the entire time I was at Chatauqua. It really does happen.

Cleared4appch

Have you worked for a regional before? Most regionals I would say don’t do these types of things. Some, on the other hand, do. PSA is one of them. I thought people were just complaining and making excuses about PSA’s training before I came here, until I came here and found out. It’s a different culture. The training department, in my opinion, has a lot of strange characters. Some of them couldn’t ever move on to the majors for whatever reason and got stuck here. If I were a person in charge of pilot hiring at the majors, there is zero chance I would ever give some of these PSA lifers a chance. I’d prevent them from coming over and ‘infecting’ the culture at a legacy. Unfortunately they’re stuck at the regionals, which is bad for the ones who want to move up. They can affect people’s careers. and quite frankly many of them seem to like that. They like being the big fish in a little pond. Some, like one particular instructor I had in initial training, was the most awful human I’ve ever had the unfortunate privilege of dealing with. There are no words to describe how unprofessional and how much of a bully he is. Thankfully, he is no longer in the training department I heard.

These types of people do exist at some regionals, PSA being one of them. It was really bad before Covid. They managed to fire a lot of deadweight and toxic people during that time but unfortunately a few had remained. I had one of those as described above. This guy has a reputation so bad at PSA everyone knows who he is, yet the company doesn’t fire these types. They protect them. You would think they would send them out the door. But that’s not how PSA operates.

The company has gotten better over time, for sure. It’s come a long way, and I hope it continues to get better. I’m feeling pretty confident it will. I see more new faces in the training department each year and I have a more positive experience with many of the instructors compared to the ones I used to have, most of whom, thankfully, are gone.

To put things into perspective, I am a person who has never failed a checkride at PSA. But I was extremely unhappy with the experience and the abuse from some of my instructors. These people were so bad I’d call out sick in a heartbeat if I ever see them on my schedule. Each workplace, and in particular, airline training departments, have their own culture. Some are good, others not so good. Some are highly toxic. Some are just like that just because.

fliesonthewall

Again, the instructors are not medically qualified to operate a CRJ, let alone a C-172. I've heard that recently many of the ground instructors are "milking the cow". They are essentially recommending additional training to both DEC's nd F.O'S who would be suffice moving forward into the simulator portion of their training.

ACAIBOWL

Just attended a cadet meeting. They said new hire training is now in CLT, not DAY, and they completetly revamped their training. They also said all the comments about their training were partially true, but they reorganized the department and fired old school guys. I took it with a grain of salt but they seemed very open about it.