Hello,

I am an FO for one of the AA wholly owned regionals, and my goal is to get to Southwest. I am working on upgrading as quick as I can to start building TPIC time, I am also going to become a cadet mentor as well and do some volunteer work outside of the airlines. My biggest worry now is I don’t have a college degree. I have heard that has become a big deal again and am worried I won’t be able to get in because of that. I have looked at the possibility of working on getting one online, however, it’s a good bit of cash and will take me a while to complete. Is it worth getting a degree or should I just focus on building time, volunteer work, etc?

 

The degree is an easy discriminator for the airlines. When times are competitive I think its almost always going to be "preferred", or effectively required. I would look at the cost/benefit question. You do it online, and get an aviation degree, which all your ratings will give you a lot of credit for already. So roughly, you're looking at 2-2.5 years of school for a Bachelor's. What's the cost of that vs the benefit of a multi-million dollar career at Southwest (since you posted in this forum) or any other major? I'd say do the degree in addition to all the other stuff you're doing. Get into the training department too, if you can. You never know how many people are more competitive than you. Your best bet is to make yourself undeniable on paper and then sell yourself in the interview. With all that said, there is going to be a lot of hiring next year.

 

I got mine at California Coast University. Easy. Self-paced. Affordable. I got a TON of credits for my pilots licenses. There are several resources available online to help “expedite” your degree.

I don’t know what’s considered “competitive” these days, but I know in my interview class there were a ton of Spirit guys. Probably 70% of which were CA’s.

Apply during the next window and keep digging.

 

Some places, community college is essentially free. Make sure the credits will transfer (and find out if credits expire after a certain number of years) and you can get a lot of credits fast and cheap before paying wherever you'll get your final degree.

 

Thank you for the advice! I’m going to do some shopping to find out where I can do this degree online.

 

An associates degree is better than nothing. Start there.

Historically the 4yr degree was an almost absolute requirement industry wide. It’s also a super easy HR filter. I suspect if they care about the degree nothing else will compensate and if they don’t, 121 tpic is what will matter

 

It’s a points-based system — once you earn enough points, you’re selected for an interview. A bachelor’s degree is heavily weighted, so it takes a significant amount of leadership and flight experience to offset not having one. Yes, you can get hired without a degree, but traditionally it required thousands of hours of TPIC and some additional qualifications, such as check airman, chief pilot, or similar roles, to make up for the absence of a degree.

If you’re serious about Southwest, I’d recommend working on the degree. In addition to receiving credit for your FAA certificates and taking classes at a local community college, you can also test out of many credits through CLEP and DANTES exams. Schools like Thomas Edison and Excelsior College don’t have residency requirements, so you can transfer in as much credit as possible.

 

I got hired at UA without a degree. I know of at least 3 other ones like me, and a few hundred that had one. And I had 8000 hours TPIC, 15000 TT, 5 type ratings, JAA/FAA ATP(L), no failures in 20 years.
Yes, there is a way without, but it is probably easier to get the degree.

 

I think the biggest metric right now (rumor only can’t confirm) is turbine PIC time as defined by 121 ops vs having a degree. If you have both, great. There are many candidates that meet or exceed all of the checkboxes. No PIC turbine and no degree doesn’t bode well for 121 right now.

 

The thing that seemed to put me across the "get the interview" line was checking the check airman box, but that was 7.5 years ago now....