Average pilot qual's for the regionals
 

(Mods: feel free to move this thread if it belongs somewhere else)

In thinking about the latest wave of regional hiring, I got to thinking about the following question:

"Over the past decades, what have the average competitive requirements been for a new-hire FO at a regional airline?"

I graduated college in '94, and if I remember correctly, the regionals wanted 3000TT and 500ME as a minimum before they'd even talk to you. Ideally, 5000TT and 1000ME. Which was why I didn't take that route.

I recall in the hiring boom of '04--'07 they were taking guys with 250 hours. Then from '08--'11 almost nobody hired anyone. At least, that is my memory. And of course now everyone is hiring, but with 1500TT, 50--100ME as the min requirement.

So I'm interested...who can remember, as far back as possible, how the hiring minima have changed at the regionals over the years?

Looks like you just summarized it pretty well.

You got it. When hiring did pick up again in 2010 and 11, mins were in the 2000/200ME range but gradually fell off to 1000/100 then 500/50. However, leading up to August 2nd 2013 (ATP regs), airlines had to increase their mins again so they didnt hire a whole bunch of people who turned into pumpkins on the 2nd (there were a few cases).

But also remember there was a time when people had to pay for their training at the airlines. What a entitlement era we live in nowadays.

Ask around at the majors. A lot of pilots got hired after just having 2500 hrs in the 90's.
Now plenty of 10,000hr RJ captains hoping to move up.
Times are a changing

In the late 80's and early 90's, the regionals (we called them "the commuters") typically didn't look at anybody with less than an ATP and 2000 total time, and 500 multi-engine. I was the lowest time guy in my class in '91 with 2100 total time and 330 multi time, along with the ATP. This was for a Bae32 Jetstream class - 19 seats, 16,204 pound max gross takeoff weight airplane that AE operated under part 135 regs.

Yeah, in '94 that's about what I recall. Just out of curiosity:

• What was it like in the 60s, 70s, and 80s?
• How about the late 90s up through 9/11? Were they hiring 250-hour guys on September 10, 2001?
• And as I recall, 2001--2004 was a total disaster with zero hires and plenty of furloughs, so 'min quals' were kind of irrelevant.

Did I get that right?

These are the reasons I find it laughable the RAA is complaining about the new ATP requirement. What has changed so drastically in the past 20 years? Movement to the majors, quality of life, and of course pay.

Just out of curiosity, what was the typical amount of time a pilot would spend at a commuter before being hired on at a major?

Really? I don't recall ever hearing of that (besides those Gulfstream Air/ Eagle Jet Int'l guys.) What was the story?

For sure. Good buddy of mine flew Metroliners for Eagle in the late '80s. I believe his salary was the same as regional FOs make today...except that this was in the late 80s, and in real terms, that means wages today are 50% lower (yes, half) what they were in the late 80s.

There were also guys hired by legacy carriers with 250-300 hours, but now think regional pilots are not good enough for that job. I was on ones Jumpseat last month.

I think a really interesting question is whether Brian Bedford actually purgered himself when testifying in front of Congress very recently.

He testified that the highest qualified pilots were the lower time pilots because they could get them before they developed bad habits. He further said he has turned away a substantial amount of higher time candidates because they were not as qualified or developed bad habits.

But in retrospect, if that was true, why would Republic have posted hiring minimums much higher in past years on his watch?

Time period 47:55 through 48:40
and again at 53:40 through 56:00

Air Service to Small and Rural Communities | Airline Pilot Info

The guy's obviously someone who is poisonous to the well-being of his employees, but what he said sure doesn't rise to the level of perjury. What he expressed are merely opinions.

More like falsehoods being thrown out in an attempt to get the hiring minimum flight times lowered, instead of actually raising the pay for professional pilots to attract those that meet the existing minimums!

God told him to do it.

The big ones off the top of my head that were PFT.
Comair
Express Jet(cont exp)
ASA
Chatauqua
ACA - not sure

Wait. Really? Got my private ticket in '89 and have never even heard of this...

Good point..when I was hired in early 2011, an ATP was a minimum requirement.


....and if it wasn't perjury, it was certainly misleading.

BIZEX
JSI, now PSA
ExpressOne, later Pinnacle
ACA did till fall of 1999, IIRC. They later went to a training contract, as did some others.

Late 90's, AWAC and AE had the same published mins, 2500TT, 1000ME, preferably 500 turbine with 121 or 135 experience.

PFT back then was more the norm, NOT the exception.

I don't remember, AE, AWAC, Great Lakes, TSA, Piedmont, or Allageny (SP) charging. But the last 2 had pretty high mins as well. I don't remember MESA or any of the subsidiaries having it. Maybe the companies that made up Eagle BEFORE there was AE did. Simmons, WingsWest, Nashville Eagle, etc.

I can't remember if Mesaba or UFS, or CCAir had it or not.

Reference the above. In the early 90's, getting hired at the "commuters" to fly a turboprop was roughly $5k IIRC. COEX had a sliding scale depending on how much time one had and which aircraft one was hired into.

By the time the RJ's came online at the end of the PFT era, getting hired into a jet was right around $10k.

Also, back then many of them did conditional hiring. You interviewed at the airline, and were hired as long as you passed the flight training portion FIRST. Often times, MOST of the training (systems and sim) was done by an outsourced vendor, often FSI. After that was done, THEN you'd be sent to the airline's basic indoc course.

I REALLY wish in would have kept some of those AirInc books from "back in the day".

Pulling all this info from my Rainman memory is fatiguing.

Don't worry too much about it...he's looking for a EASA-style frozen ATP or MPL, which is very expensive training.

Bedford is chasing a fantasy...someday he'll realize that the system that he envisions still requires a $100k-$150K outlay by a prospective new-hire. There's no changing the fact that it will still require a much better and more immediate return on investment.

His fantasy of creating a pipeline of cheap, low-hour pilots is unrealistic.

Late 90's till 2001, average life expectancy of a regional pilot that upgraded and got the "magical 1000TPIC" varied from 2-4 years, depending what company, and what equipment. Many back then operated both props and jets, with a jet FO usually having a seat lock.

It could really depend on where one worked back then. Some "commuters" paid $8-10-12/hr, AFTER paying $5k for training, with NO workrules, all for the privilege to grunt out 6-8-10 legs a day in a Metro/1900/J32, etc. AWAC paid their prop FO's upwards of $20/hr BACK THEN.

That was a SMALL SMALL SMALL minority of pilots hired during a VERY small window in the late 60's. I'm not even sure any of those guys are even flying for the airlines these days. I met a Pan Am guy on a America West 757 jumpseat more than 23 years ago who was one of those guys, but he was the only guy I met who actually was one of "them". He was a class act, btw.

I am certain that NONE of those guys are around now, Think about it: 23 years old in 1969 would force that guy to retire in 2006 or 2011 (age 60 or 65). I know for a fact that no 250 hour wonders were hired in the 70's, so, I'm not sure I quite believe the guy you referred to was one of those 250-300 hour wonders hired in the 60's. He's not old enough.

Also, NO division of AE was EVER Pay For Training (PFT). Thank God they never went there.

CoEx pilots back then who went through that were considered nearly SCABS because they PAID to fly for a company, rather than being PAID to fly. They caught a LOT of hell on these forums back then. However, as far as I know, pretty much ALL of those guys flowed over to Continental within a couple of years, so they had the last laugh, I guess. Many are captains at the New UAL now. Who figured?!

Are you sure you're not thinking of another small group of pilots that paid, and became engineers, THEN pilots at CAL? As opposed to the standard mid/late 90's PFT that A LOT of regionals used?

Because as much as it sucked, as much of a black eye as it left on the industry, it's as mentioned; PFT was more a norm and NOT an exception. And contrary to what Kit Darby used to preach, PTF'ing did NOT hurt careers. There's a metric crap ton of pilots that PFT'd at any one of the various commuters/regionals listed, and it in and of itself DIDNT harm those guys. Many that are probably CA's and various legacies right now. As well as FedEx, UPS, name it.

My father among them.

You forgot Southwest & the 737 type.

At ASA and Comair a candidate paid for E120 training at Flight Safety. The outcome was far from certain, since the bust rate on the E120 at times got pretty high.

Maybe someone can explain the distinction between Southwest's "buy your Type" and the express version of "buy your Type." Either way a candidate was not "hired" until they had the Type.

Kit probably did not like it because typically the buy your Type crowd did not have as much need for his services. After all, they had been trained using documents and procedures similar to what the airline used and had more of an idea what the employer was looking for than a two hour interview prep would have provided... just a guess.

Wow, I had absolutely no idea that PFT was used by so many regionals not that long ago. No idea at all.

Soooo....does this mean that a lot of the more established guys now, who tell us all that PFT is only a slightly less evil device than Al Qaida...

...may themselves have gotten into 121 by paying for training?

Ohhh boy, could go into some tricky territory here. But to somewhat sidestep yet provide an answer, I believe that AFTER 9/11 the background check did become more comprehensive, as well as go back further. I remember all of us in the 121 world did get another check done. So it could be said that back then, yes, people with less than legitimate backgrounds probably did get some training that they would not in a post 9/11 world.

And the kids today thing they are getting screwed with the ATP rule.
HA!

Sorry, I didn't phrase that well. What I meant was, if a lot of regionals required PFT throughout the 90s...that means a bunch of guys who are now mainline captains must have paid for their training. Yet, in today's world, PFT is viewed as a despicable practice...and it wouldn't surprise me to see those same mainline guys leading the outrage against PFT. Which would be...ironic.

To answer your question, nope. I clearly remember the Pay For Training scheme that COEX had back in about '99 for a few years. The forums were merciless in their damnation of the pilots who actually paid about 10 Grand to work there. But the newbies that came in all stood firm in their belief that it was a good thing for them because they'd flow up and out soon enough - which interestingly enough, they DID.

I remember that it seemed like a majority of regional airlines adopted that policy eventually, but I was proud of the airline I worked for - Eagle - in that they never went down that route.

PFT started around the early 1990's. Most had it. You paid $350 for a Flight Safety evaluation, then it was around $9500 plus living expenses for training. My carrier at the time started using PFT pilots in 1993. When Northeast Express shut down, I missed the last non PFT class at CO Express and was offered a slot in the first PFT class. IIRC, some of the commuters that were not PFT were AE, Piedmont and Horizon. Since there was little hiring, jobs were though to get. ValuJet was PFT too.

Average pilot qual's for the regionals
 

You should also mention that the hiring requirements to get looked at by Piedmont in 95/96 were astonishing. They wanted 2500 TT and over 500 ME, plus a lunar landing. They had the best contract in the commuters - that, in addition to the fact that they didn't participate in PFT - made them look like the cream of the crop. Funny how times change huh?

We should also bring up that the minimums to participate in PFT were 1500TT and 200ME!! So all those people who are up in arms about the ATP requirement that exists today should be reminded that these are not new minimums. They existed in the mid-90s when there were a surplus of pilots and didn't come down to the 200/300 hour RJ minimums we saw over the last decade until the majors started hiring a ton in 1999 - 2001.

PFT
 

Pilots having to pay to get hired was common during the '90's. The few you mentioned were only a fraction of who was requring pilots to pay to get a job. Express Airlines One, Express Jet, and Comair to name a few more.

This is one factor that made many licensed pilots turn away from the industry and find more suitable work elsewhere. Giving a company money to give you a job put the ball too far in the companies side, if you asked many pilots.