And you're SkyWest. You guys don't care about whipsawing other pilots.

Seriously man, a SkyWest pilot preaching about "bar lowering?"

Keep drinking that Salt Lake Kool Aid


You da man!

Stop justifying your carrier's pay. It's pathetic pay at all regional airlines, especially on the turboprop equipment.

Next up, no one will tell you to your face (lawsuit?) but jet time is looked at more favorably than turboprop time at a place like VA and especially JetBlue. Now that isn't to say they haven't hired turboprop-only guys before, because both have done so, but I know plenty of turboprop guys who were told in their interview "oh, you don't have jet time?" and then subsequently not hired for unknown reasons.

Hey homeboy, we have 6 pilots hired by blue within the past 8 months and have 6 more in the pool as we speak. All of these guys are out of EWR on the Q400... I know you like to make up things and portray them as facts, but your post is far from the truth....

I like how nobody values SIC time, as if it isn't experience... :-(

I know a couple of our guys have been hired off the Saab by a couple different carriers recently too. FWIW.

SIC time is necessary experience in order to be a better PIC in the future. If I am hiring a pilot, I want to know that person is reliable and capable of operating an aircraft. Having a lot of hours of SIC time just means you have a lot of experience watching someone else make critical decisions.

I am not saying that as an FO you don't make important decisions or voice your opinion, but there are a lot of times when you have to choose from a selection of options and the PIC is the one who has final say (assuming they are operating within the realm of safety) because in the end, they are responsible for all that happens on that aircraft.

That being said, I was jumpseating and saw an FO just off IOE who was experiencing icing for their first time and weather down to minimums save a captain from continuing an approach that would have exceeded an aircraft limitation and company policy. That captain was able to fly another day incident free thanks to that FO, but that is why we have two people up there.

Erroneous on all counts!!!:D

Your story is about recent Q guys with glass and FMS experience. The guys I know who were told that was couple years ago, in 2008, and they were Saab guys who were told they were looking for jet, glass, FMS time.

While I agree, just because someone has passed a PIC type ride doesn't mean they are reliable or even capable of operating an aircraft. I can think of one recent accident near BUF in which that was definitely the case. You are correct about the PIC and SIC time and experience, however, you need to start looking at it from the airline's point of view. If I was a hiring manager at JetBlue, Spirit, or Virgin, I would tell my HR folks to only call pilots with 0 to less than 1000TPIC time. You know when this economy turns better, a lot of guys with 1000TPIC or greater will want to bail to bigger carriers like SWA, Fedex, AA, etc.

By locking in guys with less than 1000TPIC, a LCC carrier can ensure these newhire pilots will not bail out to UPS, Fedex, SWA, etc.

You're a real class act...