^^^ This ^^^

Airlines have to realize this principle, which leads me to believe they’re not discriminating against pilots in their 50s-60s who come up from the regionals or elsewhere.

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Ive never heard such stupidity. Overqualified, too much time?

I wonder if you polled sullys passengers if they’d say the same things. Hell no they wouldn’t.

A dumb theory put forth by even dumber people.

If you look at the hiring demographics of majors very few older non military fixed wing pilots over 45 are hired. Not sure what to tell you. Does it happen? Yes, but they are the outliers. Kind of like the non WO, non military FW pilots hired by AAL. I’m not “into myself” and I’ve had my apps in for years. When even the places who help with resumes comment on it I tend to believe it.

I think this is why also, but disagree with the future results. Essentially the big 3 have removed the 40'ish civilians from their pipeline now. When hiring first started there were plenty of Regional/LCC lost decade pilots who put their apps in and were not called. Meanwhile plenty of 20/30 somethings were hired. Honestly the big 3 got all the 40 year old pilots they needed from military retirees leaving after putting in their 20. So they got a nice age mix with lots of younger less experienced pilots getting a huge break. Meanwhile the lost decade pilots got passed over.

When hiring picked up the big 3 could have pulled from the regional CA/LCC crowd and gotten those pilots onto the list to cover the growth. They probably could have strategically hired to weaken the LCC's if they had been smart about it. The younger crowd would have then had fast upgrades at the regionals and built experience over the last 5 years. There would then be future bubble from the lost decade crowd, but it could be easily covered by having a continuous flowing pipeline up through the regionals.

As it stands the LCC's have gotten decent contracts and I don't know of anyone who still updates their applications other than junior FO's. The over 40 regional Captains that I talk to have decided to make the best of their situation and probably aren't going to leave now. Everyone over 40 knows that we missed the initial hiring wave and although retirements are coming, we would have thousand of younger pilots on the list ahead of us. The hiring decisions of the Legacy airlines made the difference in retiring as a widebody Captain, or number 5000 on the list in a narrowbody.

All that said, with the biggest retirement wave coming, they can't get us anymore. Their decisions in 2015 have essentially locked away thousands of the most experienced pilots that they can no longer hire. I think this will in the long run be much more detrimental to their hiring needs than would have a secondary retirement bubble in 20 years. It would have been smaller and more manageable than the one coming.

I know it’s easy to feel like it’s all but impossible to move on when you’re a 40 something civilian RJ pilot. After spending years trying everything I could think of, I couldn’t even get an interview. All I wanted was a chance, and it seemed like that wasn’t going to happen.

At one point I even considered quitting and making a career change, as at least I could control my destiny. But I continued to do everything reasonably within my power to make it happen. Incredibly, I ended up getting two interviews with my top two dream carriers. That turned into an offer from each.

I feel very fortunate, but I know it never would have happened if I had a defeatist attitude. Don’t get wrong, we all have our down days. But you have to believe in yourself and keep doing what you can.

this is NOT TRUE at UPS. They hire LOTS of over 45 civilian. Majority of our new hires are former Atlas etc. Many of them look closer to retirement age than 30's or 40's.

Probably because they worked at Atlas...

Thanks for the encouragement.

Do they think that 10-15 years of flying for them isn't enough time for them to recoup their investment in a pilot? I just can't understand why they would not consider someone that can fly for over a decade as a viable employee.

This is not uncommon. Many guys I knew who got out had this same experience... always darkest before the dawn, and then your phone blows up. They key of course is to keep the pressure on for as long as it takes. If the job hunt doesn't make your life suck, you're not doing it right... but your competitors are.

They do, however... it's also logically possible that they do not want to completely drain the regional swamp and create a safety issue due to lack of adult leadership. As others have said they may be deliberately targeting a mixed age demographic for any pf several reasons.