I edited the thing about working for DL out but you got it quick lol.

I’ll just say that from personal experience UAL does not care about logging actual instrument time at the 121 level. And neither have any of the examiners or FAA employees who have approved my IACRA apps. Nor have I ever cared about it or heard of someone who cares about it, and I’ve been involved in pilot hiring. Perhaps a number of pilots will respond here and prove me wrong.

Part 121 flying is understood to be composed of a significant amount of actual instrument time which would be difficult to log accurately.

Have your logbooks organized and in order. Log IAPs conducted in IMC. They will look. When they look, they won’t care much about actual instrument time. This is very different from the regional level, where regionals are hiring someone out of a Seminole and committing to giving them their ATP ride in a company sim.

I gotcha and agree, just making the point that if you’re being detailed and accurate as possible with your logbook it shows some specific qualities most airlines look for.

Agreed.

As you mentioned I also kept logbook current after each trip and paid a little less than $200 for a logbook prep service. As a part of that, I spent hours poring over my logbook finding little goofs that were causing it to total incorrectly (CL-600-2D24 vs CL600-2D24 for example). The logbook review portion of the UAL interview was very smooth as a result, some of the best almost-$200 ever spent.

Congrats on the new contract BTW.

91 and former regional 121 guy here. I have an upcoming interview with UAL and I have been really wanting to use a solid logbook prep service so I don't have to think twice about if they are acceptable when I get in the interview. Which service did you use?

I dunno man, it seems like it’s worth the +/- $400 to get as prepared as possible for the biggest day(s) of your professional life. For me I would say the preparation was worth many times what I paid for it, both in terms of actual interview prep (how to answer certain questions, how to cast your experiences in the most favorable light, etc) but also for the mental strength and confidence you feel knowing you’re prepared.

To each his/her own I guess. But I for one am very glad I made the investment. I used Spitfire Elite, FWIW.

I had the same thought process as you…maybe. I was worried interview prep would mold my answers into what they thought was right, and during the interview I would lose my voice and be “remembering” what to say vice inherantly “knowing” what the right answer was. But prep companies aren’t really like that, they don’t tell you “what” to say just guide you on “how” to find the best answer within your own experiences. I did end up paying some hard earned $$ just to invest in my odds. If I failed, I would always wonder why I didn’t take the time. In the end, could I have passed the interview without it…most definitely. Did it make it somewhat less stressful and borderline fun, yup. You have to know yourself. Do you do large public speaking events already where you answer questions, keep the audience entertained, but have specific subject matter that you must verbatim express? Then knock yourself out. On the other hand, if you’re in your 20s without decades of stories on the tip of your tongue, just spend the dough. My 2 cents.

To chime in, i used ProSoft which was recommended to me by cage marshall. I was in recurrent while ordering and they were kind enough to reach out and coordinate with me so i could receive the logbook at my hotel. The whole process with the rush order took a night to make the logbook and a day to ship. When you receive the logbook it has steps and examples to prep it for your interview, things like adding a table of contents and graphs to summarize your flight time, i chose to send them my logbook so the flight time was already there. I used the whole day before my interview to complete the summarization. When i walked into the interview i saw a couple of other people had the same service while some just had their bundle of 2-6 separate logbooks, when i went to the 2 on 1 interview they thanked me for my logbook being so tidy and had no questions.
https://www.prosoftbinders.com/produ...kage-logbooks/