I've flown with a D225 former FA of ours. She was a sharp cookie. She flew for Swift for a couple years before getting a class here, so she had something like 1500 hours in type when she showed up here. Great stick and super fun.

I often fly with the Rooster wanna-be 'stached bunch and as much grief as I give them on this board due to their age and lack of total experience, for the most part, they've been competent pilots and overwhelming majority of them great people with fantastic attitudes and humility. Kudos to our interview team for generally referring the most entitled gifts to aviation to Air Lines, United and American. Not to say some didn't slip through the cracks, but they appear to be very few far in between.

If I had to pick problem children, I'd say corporate pilots and maybe brand new mil guys who struggle a tad with energy management. Also, turboprop background with no jet experience, I'd occasionally find myself raising eyebrows at some of their choices, but I'd let them learn on their own as long as we have enough gas. My FOM-required "mentoring" occurs on my legs, not theirs, but usually encompasses my observation of what I'd do differently and illustrate why. Attitude matters... you can teach the rest.

I’m not a 225 guy but I am in the 225 team. My comment was purely on you not understanding the requirements in the program and not the IOE issues. We all know training programs have their issues and ours wasn’t excluded.

You continue to turn to personal attacks versus accepting any form of information that isn’t your own. You can build a lot of hours and experience in 6 years from when your attempted attack on my experience back then was posted.

If you always have a negative mindset you’re always going to be in the 5%. Be humble and be human.

Look at the program requirements that is the current projected timeline 6-8 years. 1-2 as an instructor and then phase 3 is minimum 2 years that is the minimum. Add in flight training which has varied dramatically in the program between 1-2 years which has mostly been issues with the program schools prioritizing other contracts and DPE shortages. Like I’ve said elsewhere I work in the program so while numbers may vary outside the initial batch which was college and Swift people when they went out of business. 225 hasn’t been the problem it’s been outside of the program, but yall focus on a small subset of 100-150 pilots out of 3K hired.

I agree with the sentiment of the second half about canceling CJOs, but we don’t know all the details either. It’s all rumor mil, but if you interview with 225 you only interview once and it’s a longstanding CJO. Whether you like it or not it’s how the company designed the program. We can complain all day but none of us have a real say unless your secretly a VP who blocks their board.

I can’t wait til we fly together. Get that shovel out to find the bottom of your toolbox, bro.

I didn’t make any personal attack, and your post wasn’t six years ago. There are 91 225 pilots on property, and the 225 requirements are public information. Also, I don’t have a negative mindset—you have no basis to project that straw man onto me. I appreciate your 225 team efforts and I wish you success.

the guy is defending his trip pulls and ability to move up the ladder at the GO thats all.

I've flown with several of the 225 guys, and I'd take one over an air force fighter guy any day of the week.

Hay, don’t knock it. Lots of trip pulls to sit at home all month and get paid to make a couple of phone calls. Please do not forget to SET, every dollar counts that we can save. :)

I am just going to keep the "SWA REPORTING" app open on my iPad to make it easier. 😂

I was referring before to the first set of numbers you posted which was 3-4 years of experience building as a CFI and then on to the 225 partners for bigger flying. But, I am truly not here to pick apart your numbers or to put you or anyone else down, but what you posted above is definitely inline with the today’s time averages.

Anyway, I’ve got zero problem w/ D225. It was created at a time when the pilot shortage was very real and they were hiring tons of people with less experience than had ever been hired at SWA. And I’m not throwing rocks in a glass house either: I was one of those low hour pilots myself with only 900 hours as a regional FO when I got here. Arguably, I may have had even less experience than a good chunk of the 225 folks with far less “company vetting and mentorship” before arriving. It has never been lost on me how incredibly lucky I am to be here. Rewind the clock to the low time hiring boom and D225 was certainly a wise idea at the time given the circumstances.

And I’m not saying it’s a bad idea now, but the problem is this industry has always hired on a sliding scale and now that the hiring pendulum has started drifting its way back towards candidates having more experience, how do you balance that with D225? Do you start requiring your D225 to get more experience at SWA’s partners before coming on board? Maybe so. Sorry that our standard was just 500 hours turbine 3 years ago, but it is now 500 TPIC or 1,000 TPIC (or whatever the hiring line is determined to be).

I get it that they invested money to get certificates and invested 6-8 years to get to the point they are at but aviation is not fair and it runs on its own timeline. At some point in the future, the company may need to adjust its stance unless it wants to continually turn away candidates with a lot more experience.