Originally Posted by PotatoChip (Post 2791124)

Yup. Exactly right.
Lost decade was real, and it completely sucked. Many 26 year olds today think we're making this garbage up....

Originally Posted by John Carr (Post 2791127)

And for many, it’s shaping up to be the lost/dark 1.5-2 decades by the times they can finally get interviewed, etc.

Originally Posted by PotatoChip (Post 2791130)

From regional new hire initial to major airline ground school has taken me 15.5 years. I've had MANY FO's of mine way less qualified hired by legacies with half the time. And I've done everything possible to avoid being that stagnant, lazy guy.

Originally Posted by captjns (Post 2791056)

It’s unsubstantiated urban legend... The same that expats will never be hired by any US legacy. It’s all BS. They either make it through the hoops, or they dont’t.

Originally Posted by word302 (Post 2791104)

But if you have 5000 apps from guys that are "set in their ways" and 5000 apps from guys who aren't, which pile would you pull from?

Originally Posted by Flyboy68 (Post 2791014)

So you think it's more of a personal choice and not so much to do with their personality for many of them?

Obviously, you're going to have the ones with sketchy records or employment history, training failures.

So it's a mixture of both choice, and blemished records?

The bolded paragraph is just shocking. Don't they realize that they could make so much more money with just a few years of sacrifice if they moved to an LCC or major? Can they not do the math?

Originally Posted by chrisreedrules (Post 2791108)

I think a lot of the posters on this thread miss the mark completely...

The airlines weren’t doing too great in the year or two leading up to September 11th, 2001. That event in many ways set in motion a downward spiral for the legacies. Then age 65 happened. And then the financial crisis / housing crisis of 2007/2008. Essentially what the industry was left with was a, “lost decade”.

Pilots were essentially “stuck” where they were at. So this begs the question... Do you put your entire life on hold to wait until you make more money? Or do you go ahead and marry your wife and have kids? Buy that house you and your family wants? No career is worth putting your life on hold.

So the natural byproduct is that many pilots who often suffered from nothing other than bad timing went on about their lives. And it wasn’t until a few years ago really that entry-level wages at the legacies improved. So for most pilots with mortgages, kids in college, etc it simply was not feasible to make the jump. And now that perhaps it is feasible they have less than 10 years left and don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze for the twilight of their career.

There are those who have other issues, but I have ran across far more who fit the mold above than those who have personality conflict and training/qualification issues.

Originally Posted by Excargodog (Post 2791029)

Lots of factors but among them is the ridiculous first year wages at some of the ULCCs. There was a long discussion on this subject on a Frontier thread back when their negotiations were going on. The pilot group didn't wish to "waste" any "negotiating capital" on bringing newbie's on board. So what did the first year FO wages end up?

$58 an hour for Frontier
$57 for Spirit
$78 for JetBlue

Originally Posted by John Carr (Post 2791127)

And for many, it’s shaping up to be the lost/dark 1.5-2 decades by the times they can finally get interviewed, etc.

Originally Posted by PotatoChip (Post 2791130)

From regional new hire initial to major airline ground school has taken me 15.5 years. I've had MANY FO's of mine way less qualified hired by legacies with half the time. And I've done everything possible to avoid being that stagnant, lazy guy.

Took 5.5 years to upgrade at a regional. That wasn't too bad. Now I fly with 24 year olds complaining how it's BS they haven't been pulled for CA yet. Unreal.