In economics, Gresham's law is a monetary principle stating that "bad money drives out good". For example, if there are two forms of commodity money in circulation, which are accepted by law as having similar face value, the more valuable commodity will gradually disappear from circulation. The historical example was that of coins of precious metal versus coins of base metal. While by law both were of equal value, people would tend to hoard the former and more quickly spend the latter because if the perception that one was more valuable than the other. The same thing went on with silver certificates and federal reserve notes. In theory the former were redeemable for silver, although I’m not sure anyone ever really did that, while the latter were merely backed by the full faith and credit...etc. But both were just paper and in the eyes of the government equal. Nonetheless, people tended to more highly value the silver certificates.

So whatinell has any of this to do with flow, you are no doubt asking yourself by this time? Well simply this:

While I have no idea whatsoever if the historical measures used by major airlines in their hiring selection process are valid or not, the flow is clearly a mechanism being used by some individuals in an attempt to circumvent these measures.

You see it everyday on APC in the advice given to individuals with blemished records. Got too many training failures? Go to an AA wholly owned. It may take you a decade, but you’ll eventually get there. No college degree? Couple of DUI’s and a domestic violence charge? Not good. Whole lot of speeding tickets? Better go to a regional with flow. It’ll be a good “backup” to have when all the other majors send you nothing but TBNT letters. And people listen to that advice and make those career adjustments.

And maybe it makes no actual difference to the major airline at all, maybe after 6-7 years of successfully flying 121 at a regional you are ready to go to the majors no matter if you started your career with a few blemishes or not. Maybe the filters the majors inject in the hiring process taken in the aggregate do not predict train ability or success as an airline pilot any more than surviving at a regional long enough to flow does. Maybe successful 121 flying at the regional level is a better predictor than military flying or anything else. And maybe it isn’t.

But one thing that does appear likely is that regionals with flow will ultimately attract more than their pro rate share of those with what historically would have been considered to be “blemished” careers, and as those pilots at those regionals who are more competitive are increasingly plucked up as off the street hires before their time to flow comes up, those remaining will increasingly be those persons whose OTS hire opportunities have been impeded by those blemishes.

So will those who ultimately do make it into the majors only due to flow now be perceived as the debased coinage equivalent of all the applicants even by the major hiring them? Especially now, because let’s face it, the regionals have been forced to get much less selective in who they hire in recent years. Will AA eventually decide this was a bad deal and do away with flow, or at least impose new restrictions on it to make it more like CPP or DGI?

Does Gresham’s Law apply to flow? It’s an interesting question.

It's complicated.

Part of the complexity is that "blemished records" do not directly and in a quantifiable manner correlate to quality. While you can control a lot of it, there is still some luck involved as to who makes it to a major interview without any training blemishes (criminal issues are of course 100% controllable).

Of course someone with good grades and clean record is almost certainly going to be a better pilot (and employee) than someone with a history of multiple training problems and legal entanglements. But there's a very wide middle-ground into which the majority of pilots fall.


Majors like clean records mainly because it makes their screening job easy. All they have to do is verify the applicant is not lying, and there are systems to do that (SIDA, PRIA, etc).

When they start looking at those with blemishes, they have to try to adjudicate the underlying truth of the matter, which can be hard after the fact.

Also they consider how your training and legal history will look in the media after an accident.

So from an HR perspective, quality means easy to screen and will hold up well under media scrutiny. In addition to good pilot.

If push comes to shove they would likely be willing to expend more resources to adjudicate blemishes, and separate wheat from chaff. If they were confronted with parking airplanes, they probably wouldn't worry about your media present-ability either.

There's one issue you're forgetting - you can't get hired by an AA WO with multiple failures, or DUIs.
3 checkride failures is an automatic no from Envoy for example. They can be pretty selective.

Three checkride failures or DUI’s shouldn’t be seen as “pretty selective”...

Also, you’re not adding in the mergers that inevetably take place and add those “type” of people to the pilot group mix anyway.

Basically....No one cares.

In the regional world, yes it is. Possibly more so than any other regional.

I didn't mean 3 DUI's btw, just DUI's in general. And max 2 checkride failures.
The only thing WO's sort of give you is the lack of degree requirement.

I would be worried come negotiation time at AA if there is any sort of hiccup going on with the economy. There are definitely quite a few pilots flowing through who are aware that they otherwise are not very competitive for a major due to a number of issues as seen here on APC (no college degree, background issues, don't interview well, etc). Those types are more likely to settle for something cost neutral or even concessionary.

That and I'm just not a fan of it from a labor perspective. It is the path of least resistance and it does not require the level of effort and aptitude for entry that other majors require. I remember when PSA was offering phone interviews to 121 current CRJ type rated pilots, with those passing the "interview" now eligible for the flow through. Good for them I guess, but it needs to be understood that there can be a lot of negative effects from this later on down the road. Best of luck to those who find themselves in that situation.