Does AVIATE Suck?
 

Just trying to get the feel for AVIATE from those of you that are in the program. Are you happy with the process? Do you feel like you’re being bypassed so UAL could keep you at their feeders? Would you recommend AVIATE?

Aviate’s goal is to keep you at their feeders for 4-5 years. In this market if you’re goal is to get to UAL faster you’re better off going to a competitor like AA WO, LCC, etc.

Aviate will likely get you there, just probably not as quickly as advertised or you’re hoping.

Flow programs generally suck if YOU don't suck.

If you suck (lazy, background issues, etc) then flow programs offer a means to still get to the big leagues. The price of admission is manning the oars at the feeders for longer.

Aviate blows. No communication . No seniority list. The express carriers pay $40 less than American feeders.

It sounds like you are required to fly for a UAL feeder if accepted into AVIATE. Is that correct?

Yes. To add to that, it has been said that if you are in Aviate and quit flying for UAX, you are potentially black balled from United. As rickair said, if you interview well, have a good resume, and no skeletons, go to a competitor and apply off the street. If you have any of the issues I listed, fly for UAX and then flow to UA.

Aviate is bad. It's not a 100% guarantee like envoy/Piedmont. You have to meet certain criteria in the past 5 years (no more than one 121 failure, disciplinary history, attendance record, etc) or you will be dinged. No communication at all. Questionable time frames. Etc.

Further, you will potentially have to work for 36 bucks an hour for many years... Depending on the aviate partner you chose. Either way, envoy/Piedmont pays much more than aviate partners and you are 100% guaranteed a job at AA regardless of your history.

You are 100% guaranteed a job at AA, but AA has been known to fire guys after they've flowed to mainline for having black marks in their past (that were disclosed at time of interview with the WO regional) that are undesirable.

There probably has to be more to it than that. The flow does not guarantee you immunity while on probation at AA... although some folks (especially younger) may take a good outcome for granted.

Sadly there's not much more to it... Theres a list of things you simply can't have in your background to get a job at AA mainline and if you use the flow to circumvent that, they will let you fly their RJs, flow to mainline, then they will terminate your employment the first week of indoc.

So what is on this list that will get you fired?

Yeah I am curious. Because there are lots of people at Delta, United, AA with arrests/DUI's/multiple checkride fails. It's how you explain yourself that matters.

DUI was one of them, drug charges another, general discharge another. It's one thing to be an awesome dude/dudette with one black mark and get an interview and get hired at mainline, but AA has fired people who flowed with those things because they couldn't get hired anywhere else besides a regional and AA didn't want them at mainline.

Im calling bs on this....

That is not plausible, that they would not offer flow knowing the applicant had a disqualifying factor, and not tell the applicant. How would they do a bait and switch like that and not get sued?

If a pilot did something disqualifying after being accepted into flow, but before actually flowing then they should not flow. Whether they keep their job at the regional is another matter.

If a pilot did something while on probation at AA, then duh of course they get fired.

It is however 100% plausible that flow-eligible regional pilots did something disqualifying before flowing and didn't disclose that to anyone. It's also 100% plausible that AA does background checks on new hires (from any source) and found such an issue. Duh, fired again.

I'm going to have to raise the BS flag here too. AA completely controls the WOs, so if they wanted someone fired that bad they could just instruct the WO to fire them. Even off probation there's always a legitimate reason to fire someone. It's not hard. Spend a little time as a union rep. We screw stuff up every day that nobody would notice unless they were looking, and for certain people they're looking.

Unless you can give me actual numbers of people who flowed to AA and were fired due to background issues, this is nothing but another urban legend. Even if it did happen, like Rick said, the offense probably happened while they were at the WO and they hid it and AA found it. Duh.

I know of a gal with 2 DUIs at Delta and an AA guy with a credit card fraud felony convection in his background. Aviate is a scam.

I know a person with 2 initial 121 ATP checkride fails at United. All these things are not as career ending as you think it would be.

Again, it's how much time has passed, what you did since then, how you changed your life, how you upgraded to captain and passed recurrent multiple times to overcome the fails, how you explain yourself, etc.

I’ve never heard of this “list”. I know many maaaany flows, including ones that were fired, and this was never a topic of discussion.

Dude you’re not ready for mainline without at least 4 years at a regional…

Not accurate. There’s no difference in fly at mainline vs regional.

Uhhhh, yes there is . A big difference. Class 2 nav, etops , orca ops just to name a few .

Yes, there are more tricks you need to learn and be able to perform on demand. CAT II/III autoland sounds easy but it's a whole 'nother set of profiles. Not insurmountable, but it is more to learn.

Was cat III trained at my regional, hand flew them down to 50ft as a CA. No big deal. Then we got autoland cat III jets and it was even easier.

Took me 3 mins to memorize CAT III profiles, limitations, operations, and fail passive vs fail operational. Not a hard thing to learn at all.

Regionals are 2x harder than flying for the majors. I fly the 767 and it dosnt come close the the difficulty I had of flying the crj 200. All the "extra" stuff of the majors can be learned in half a day at most.

The majors are much more easier.

We’ll everyone in Aviate I hope you see the reality of what Aviate really is. Air Wisconsin is out so those guys will be liking what to do now since there hopes with a flow to United are gone. Gojet is next with them losing 10% of captains a MONTH. So who is left you may ask ? Mesa and commutair. Commutair has a dying fleet so they are on there way out any minute and also loosing captains RAPIDLY. United will continue SOME regional flying with skywest and republic and they aren’t in Aviate. All part of the plan guys !

You do realize commutair just increased CA pay to 100/hr and FO pay to 72/hr today right? They aren't going anywhere. They're the 2nd best paying regional behind aawo

That's irrelevant. $100/hr? I made more than that at OO years ago.

When are they getting E-175's?

If you can't answer that, then they are on their way out.

That would make them the 4th highest paying regional. And a distant 4th at that.

$100/hr won’t keep CAs around long enough to get an FO enough time to upgrade. And any regional without a waiting list of ready and willing upgrade eligible FOs is in a graveyard spiral.

Truth. $150/hr for a new captain is standard now. And actually how it should have been for many years now. Glad the industry is finally paying us what we’re worth.

The air wisconsin aviate people who already completed their exit requirements will probably all still go based on the program guide and as far as I know they haven’t mentioned what will happen to the lower time people. They may have to go to another Uax carrier or maybe they’ll just let them go anyway. Not all doom and gloom yet. The XJT aviate people still got to go.

You mean the stuff ACMI pilots used to learn (pre-1500 days) as early as 500 hours TT? It's not that hard.

Still have to quit the regionals to make $250/hour as legacy captains. At UA and DL that's on offer within a year, at AA it's within 1.5 years.

why quit the regionals when you can make $400/hr as a regional LCA?

Does aviate suck?

Yes aviate sucks.

Next question!

Because the QOL doing IOE all month is lethal.

Quitting the regionals is the best thing in life. It feels better than divorce.

These programs are a joke.

Look around. You are being played. It’s a Trump styled soft dollar move against young people. It’s how Weinstein predated people. Don’t sign up for flow programs.

United American and Delta are desperate hard core addicts. What they are addicted to is 50years of cheap labor, and they want the high to keep going.

Pretty much!