How ugly might it get?
 

This came up on a major thread. A regional pilot claiming that he should be given a break for an early training failure because his regional hadn’t treated him properly. Now that’s not the sort of claim that is generally well received at any major, and he received a fair amount of pushback, but what he was CLAIMING in essence was that his regional couldn’t keep pilots - especially captains - and as a consequence had decided to intentionally fail people in training over relatively minor issues, then just do a quick remedial train and pass for the PURPOSE of screwing up their PRIA just to slow their career progression and keep them at the regional longer. He implied that similar things were done at the “mandatory CA upgrade” at minimums, the ostensible purpose being to keep them at the regional as long as possible and stop them from going to competitive majors as an OTS hire before they would eventually progress to the major that owned the regional, tainted PRIA or not.

Question 1. Is this really happening anywhere? I know the promised retention bonuses are getting (at least by preCOVID standards) huge, but are any regionals really so desperate for retention that they would intentionally screw over their own pilots records just to be able to keep people ?
Question 2. There clearly are major airlines that have built their business models around regional feed and using their regional fleet (owned or contract) to hold down hub gates. As regional pilots become scarcer, do regional pilots get higher rates to keep them? Or does that flying get converted to mainline flying? Or what?

Because the pilot shortage will start to really bite at the regionals long before it does at the majors.

Q1 - Yes.

Based solely on anecdotal evidence of communication with peers comparing prior yearS recurrent training with current years recurrent training

That tactic would require a lot of people to coordinate. Seems unlikely

But the way things are looking doubt it will make much difference

I’m not going to go searching for the original post, but I believe the shop said person was claiming foul play at was GoJet.

Yeah I believe it 100%, the owners of GoJet have been accused of much worse correct? If you read about what’s going on at CummutAir recently, it sounds like they’re on the brink of becoming the next Trans States, who supposedly shut down operations due to staffing issues.

What incentive do these instructors have hosing their students? Job security. Our entire world is built on individuals with self interests. Coordination from upper management wouldn’t be required. Most sim instructors probably have a better idea than anyone of their airlines current staffing issues.

I won’t say that is the intent, however, to answer your Questions.

Q1. Yes, it is happening. At my old regional shop, there were a few APDs out there busting folks for little stuff or a certain demographic of pilots failing with a certain APD (Military Rotor guys being busted by a certain individual). Pattern and trends don’t line.

Q2, I am not going to say that it is a strategic maneuver by the regionals to hold guys back. But it wouldn’t surprise me about GoJet.

If a regional trying to hold folks back, there other means. I know of other shops and my previous one loving to throw letters into ones files to delay one’s ability to flow by 2 years.

I will say that the training at the regionals aren’t great in comparison to Mainline or ACMI. The training environment at a Major, LCC, or ACMI is definitely more relaxed in terms of how the training department treats their new hires or folks in training/upgrades vs the regionals. It’s not even close. As a result, the quality of training and output at the regionals aren’t great…..

Nope, it only requires one or two "enforcers" in the training department.

on the other hand I have seen guys get hired at majors and Big-3 with checkride and training issues. The "big picture" theory applies. Was it 20 years ago? New in their career (ostensibly the case of this regional scenario) ? With otherwise good performance and resume filler? recommendation letters and guys "vouching for" the guy?

or a checkride failure every other year ?

some companies want applicants to disclose EVERYTHING even "additional training" needed at ANY STAGE post Private Pilot issuance.

Imagine the Instrument ticket/Private Pilot stage because they needed work on holding entries. some applications out there are "since obtaining your private pilot, have you EVER required additional training"

"lets polish up your holds, they are passable but lets tweak them. how about we do some holds tomorrow for 2 hours?"

airline career tubed?

no of course not

etc.

Yes, I believe it's happened in the past. Plenty of anecdotal evidence. Not sure about today. As someone said, it only takes a couple good 'ol boys and only a quiet word over a beer, not a massive, coordinated conspiracy.

Also as was mentioned, senior lifer types have a clear incentive to help stem the blood loss, even if nobody tells them to. Their comfy, reasonably lucrative gigs are on the line.

I have also heard of "retention bounties", but not sure if I believe it.

Still happens today….

Sounds like a massive class action lawsuit in the future....

1. Difficult to prove.
2. Would you want to be the non-pilot judge to tell an airline they ought to LOWER their standard for certifying their pilots? Knowing you’ve now just bought every ops related mishap that airline has for the next 40 years?

Have a friend fail training at an airline because the instructor didn’t like him (personalities didn’t mix). Had to get the union, training dept, and management involved for the issue. Obviously, nothing came about it at the end of the day, but a return ticket home. Dude is the hardest work I know.

He wasn’t failed to keep him there longer, but I guess things like this do happen.

JC over at PSA is infamous for his shenanigans. He’s lost his APD letter at least once. I made it through clean but that place is known for dirtying up mil guys (and not just rotorheads)

This right here… there is also someone in CVG that had a pattern with Mil guys also…..

I mean anyone who ever did any instruction knows that if your goal is to fail someone, you almost certainly can find a valid reason no matter how prepared they are. It's just a matter of digging until you find a weak area then hammering until they trip up. It's a truly scummy thing to do, especially since in this industry you either have a perfect record or are damaged goods.

I've known a few instructors who started treating evaluations like their opportunity to make the applicant feel like an idiot, but I've been lucky enough to avoid that kind of personality at the airlines.

Just a directive from head of training

Can't go on record for something like that, it would be verbal on the DL for sure (if it ever happened).

Ask a senior captain about the Memphis Mafia.

You'd think, since regionals like to keep their pilot groups junior as to keep payroll costs low, they wouldn't be so inclined to sabotage ones chance of moving on.

A constant revolving door keeps the pilots from getting too expensive. Seems like that's what the regional business model is about. Idk. Maybe I'm wrong.

‘The game has changed….. Can’t move airplanes with Captains and pilots especially if they are getting sucked up by your competition faster than you can replace them without throwing money at Bonuses…. the next best option is to control the exodus with down low hit jobs….

You are wrong.
Ask yourself this question: Why are there regionals?

The answer is there are regionals because they make money. Who do they make money for? Well, the majors, obviously. If they weren’t a money maker, why would the major even hire them to fly pax? Because it damn sure isn’t the regional selling the ticket. The AA wholly owned s contribute substantially to AAs bottom line. So do you think AA wants these guys to move up to the major as soon as humanly possible? So they can then pay them MORE and then have to go find and train a replacement to keep the regional functioning? Or would they rather hire someone else - away from their competition, so THE COMPETITION incurs that expense. And it isn’t just AA. Look at Republic. Who owns it? When it emerged from bankruptcy in 2017 61% of the shares were held by United, Delta, and American. Who owns Horizon? Alaska, that’s who. Who owns Endeavor? Delta. Skywest and Mesa are the outliers.

if major airline management didn’t benefit from the regionals, regionals would have disappeared long ago. And the majors are just as happy to keep their regional pilots on the far cheaper pay scale just as long as possible.

Just insane that some you think this might be going on. It always seems to be the APD’s fault and never the pilot’s when there’s a failure. Don’t give them anything to fail you on! Do the work, study, all of the information is there.

Damn, here is the first one in history of aviation who has done a perfect checkride.

Saying it’s possible some regionals are intentionally failing people does not mean it’s never the pilots fault for a failure. No one is saying that.

No one will ever have a perfect checkride. If an examiner wants, I guarantee you they could dig until they find something to fail you on. Depending on how much leeway you have with the checkride is set up, you can easily create a Kobayashi Maru scenario. Kill an engine 49 miles from a mountain airport hard IFR with a short contaminated runway and only a localizer approach and 51 miles from a clear international airport. They go to the mountain, ding them for not exercising their command authority and going to the better runways. They go to the big airport? Ding them for bypassing a suitable airport.

Luckily no one I’ve ever run into has this attitude, but when one person has been doing checkrides for a decade and has 20,000 hours in the airplane, and the other is a new hire, there is going to be cracks in their armor even if the new hire studied above and beyond what is expected.

Or the training department could do something like this: Make upgrade LOE to an airport you don't service and attempt a complex visual you've never seen in real life. Combined with the very poor graphics/visuals of the sim and an emergency...
First upgrade round was rumored to have failed about 90%.

At my current shop (PSA) this was a byproduct of the grift wrapped Christmas present (ratified 12/17) that management got out of a prior MEC Chair called Senior Manning. Rather than use a shortage of Captains as leverage to increase pay said MEC Chair thought it was his job to save the company by allowing the Company to take FOs from the top of the list and turn them into Captains because the company was too scared to do it from the bottom of the list, as our contract allowed at the time (at least if you squinted and read between the lines of the JRM section). No doubt there were some that should've never been put in that position, to say nothing of all the life plans that were upended by the company with little regard. It would've been way better to just put a 2 year requirement in the left seat to flow, but certain VPs had trained ALPA how to give back rubs at the time.

It's not about gate space. There's plenty of gates all over the system that will accommodate RJs and not narrow bodies. Ultimately regional feed is about delivering a plethora of departures and arrivals to second tier markets that the LCCs can't touch. I've seen Allegiant flights cancel at the gate and the agents just offer everyone a refund as their only option. If you were on DAL, UAL, or AA, any one of them has multiple hubs they can route you though on multiple departures.

There certainly is a cost structure advantage to FFD flying, but ultimately we're going to see a lot more of it brought in house, either by Group 1 flying (DAL is already doing this with the 717 and 220), and ultimately what was once considered RJs. The never several years are going to be very interesting.

Actually in this industry it is assumed it is the pilot's fault, always. Not sure what you are rambling about, just ask yourself what percentage of check-rides have been reversed?

There are multiple factors leading to high failure rates. Non-AQP programs, first time 121 training, a few gung ho examiners "keeping the standards up", and no incentive for the company to fix the problem due to slower attrition. I know Spirit tripped up a few people when their training was pretty poor years ago. The classes had 1 or 2 from each class fail the oral and then a checkride after 4 sims which failed another 1 or 2. Some groups had 10-20% of the class with failures by the end. Prior to AQP that really wasn't out of the ordinary at most regional airlines where people were seeing their first 121 program but to see it at a bigger airline was odd.

PSP and whatnot?

Yes - GoJet

Honestly this sounds more like your friend had a fair go and just wasn’t up to the task. Your view is biased because he is your friend and he’s only telling you one side of the story. You see this pretty regularly when involved in the training/testing world (non flight school type stuff).

Stories were consistent with statements of his sim partner. Known him for many years and he’s not one to make things up like that. There was more to the story than I care to share, but I see your point. Have another CFI that went there, failed training and said it’s because they’re racist. He’s really just a bad pilot.

I dont think he's there anymore. I worked with him at PSA. He is a good dude, just very thorough and by the book. Nothing wrong with that so long as you had all your ish in one sock. Our program, at the time, was not a good fit for rotor dudes. Not much slop. I can't speak to it now because almost everyone from when I was there has flowed or moved on.

The letter thing is also just glorified rumor.

There is no truth to the "APD letter" thing. JC is tough but fair. He got his "reputation" because he had a few unprepared students in a row. I've never been a fan of his, but he has never judged a student unfairly. His pass/fail record is on par with every other APD in the regionals.

The "rotorheads" showed up completely unprepared from the nonsense that was going on down in Pensacola. The program wasn't designed to help them succeed and many failed. Guys that haven't flown anything in >10 years getting 100 hours in a 172 and then going into airline training was a recipe for disaster. A publicity stunt at best.

To think that any regional is failing people on purpose is absolutely asinine.

I’ll say this. I hooked a ride there. I own two of the strikes, called for nav on a hdg departure and busted a speed on a star. However, the first strike was an EP with a starter that I had never seen. It manifested completely differently than any other starter ep I had seen in training. So, I got out the checklist and went through the checklist. By the time I got the starter out 92 seconds had passed due to running through the checklist. What is that teaching? Rush through checklists? What is the result of breaking a limit? It’s a mx write up. Shouldn’t be a strike on a check ride. My opinion, like I said, I own the other two strikes, completely my fault. That first one though was hogwash.

Kinda like busting a flap, or gear speed limit? Mx write up as well. You don't think they should be strikes on a ride?

There are always more things that are going wrong than the official things that you get "busted" for. There always have to be official things that you messed up to bust a ride. That is what goes into the paperwork. What really costs you the bust are the small things that add up. The general sense of you having no idea what you are doing, lack of overall proficiency, and general feeling that you are not safe in the airplane yet. Those are what really causes an APD's hair to stand on end and start watching much closer.

As all examiners know, it isn't the students that you bust that keep you awake at night, it is the student that you know you should have busted that you let pass even though they should not be in the airplane yet.

completely different. And you know that.

I find it interesting, and tbh I’m glad things went down the way they did. I would have been furloughed and still on reserve at PSA. Instead I’ve got a clear path to a major and 1200 hours to build. The check bust obviously came up in the interview and I explained how things went and why I felt they did. They seemed happy enough with the explanation. Have had zero issues in two different jets and AQPs.

And yes, I do think that certain people do go after certain people. If you don’t think that’s the case you’re being blind and obtuse.

And yes, I’ve been a keeper of the standardization. You can fail any person on any day if you’re feeling like it.

Also, there weren’t other things going wrong. That was it. I’m objective enough to be able to, and usually am harder on myself than others, know what’s going well and what isn’t. Those were it. Which, ironically enough none of them would have happened in my current jet. LNAV is preselected on takeoff, it flies the speeds for you perfectly in the sim, and the starter is really a non issue with just an off switch.

It's usually multiple things. But there are some things which be a bust regardless... RSoD obviously, failure to GA with an unstable LDG, etc.