I am non-minority male pilot trying to get hired at United. I am in my mid-thirties with 8,000 TT and 1,000 TPIC. I have clean record and high GPA from aviation University(wouldn't do it again). I have close to 20 internal recommendations on file and I have attended countless job fairs in the past 4 years but I have not been able to get the interview.

I am getting a little desperate since I am not getting any younger and I keep hearing that United is looking for more youthful pilots as years pass by. I am currently employed at JetBlue but I am considering going back to the regionals in order to take advantage of the CPP.

For those that went through the CPP or other similar programs and landed the job with United, what are your experiences and would you recommend it?

Have you paid to have your app reviewed by checked and set or any of the like? That was the game changer for me. My app wasn't a mess but the tweaks that they made landed me a Hogan about 30 days later. Something to consider before you make a lateral or backwards move.

I had the app reviewed twice.

How frequently do you update your airline apps? I was told by a friend "on the inside" to update once every 5 days minimum, and again once I did that routine it didn't take long.

Well, I have been updating once a month. I will take this advice, thank you.

If it were a guaranteed flow, that could be a marginally reasonable idea. But it's not, which makes that the worst career idea I've ever heard.

Update at least once a week, even if nothing to really update. And wait, which is easier said than done I know. JetBlue is not a bad place to wait.

Never move backwards.

DO NOT LEAVE JB ! ! The biggest thing you lack right now is a little more patience. With the quals you have and the steps you have taken, you WILL be called by UAL. We are increasing hiring and there will be thousands of pilots retiring steadily over the next decade. You'll be called by UAL...probably sooner than later. IMHO.

Good luck.

Octa -

Yeah dude, I have a very similar background. I'm not sure what the magic is behind the curtain, but I can tell you based on my interview the other candidates were pretty balanced as far as demographics are concerned. All were regional or military. There was also a B6 guy there. Keep hacking away at it, United is only getting started.

Not to turn this into the NGPA thread, but leading with a reference to sex and race in the first sentence isn’t productive towards your goal. Over 90% of every UAL class is white males. United also hires people of every age.

Back to the question: Make sure you have applied at more than one airline. For some reason people just don’t get called. Maybe you spelled your email address wrong. Maybe the computer doesn’t like xyz on your app. I have had friends with ONLY a UAL app in for years get called by FDX a week after putting in their app. They make lots of money now.

Best of luck.

Thank you for saying that much nicer than I would have (50 year old white male that never got interviewed by UA)