fadec

Deleted. I accidentally pressed submit on my cell phone screen.

fadec

Yes. I occasionally hear about some sketchy flying here but at my regional the learning experiences were definitely coming in at a faster pace. The ASAP program probably had to spin up a new three letter agency when I was a new regional captain. The regionals did this out of necessity.

But what about the FO paired with the 64 year old captain? What's the MTBF of a typical 64 year old? The regionals had mostly young captains with on average more reliable body hardware. They also flew many legs, doing the same thing several times per day. They were understaffed. This was a good experience building environment. A one month experience newhire might already have 30-40 legs under their belt when their captain goes tits up.

Remember how behind y'all were as new regional FOs, or is it just me? For the first week I was seriously questioning myself. Do I have a learning disability? Am I dyslexic? How does the captain remember and sequence all of this stuff?

So how does this all work with seniority? The Airbus and and 737 have the best training schedules, but honoring seniority we can't just give those schedules to the new guys. The 757 in EWR is terrible. Imagine being that new regional FO, hired in the summer and assigned EWR 757.

Aquaticus

I think the learning curve has always been extremely steep for a new pilot in 121. You need the maturity, humility, and ability to take/give harsh but important criticism to make a good crew member. I don't think most people develop that until their late 20's. Our captains are going to have to change their expectations if this is the caliber that HR wants to hire.

Floyd

I respectfully beg to differ.

Baradium

Every phase of my career I've had people senior to me talk about "paying your dues." The best part was the guys who said it to the regional FOs who were stuck on reserve for 5 years and then you found out they were on reserve for a total of a month.

In my experience a lot of the talk of paying dues was more about an excuse not to care what other people are going through (IE, that it's acceptable and desired) rather than admit something should be done about it or that it's not a great situation to be in.

Just because many of us were stuck at regionals for 10 years doesn't mean we should expect pilots going forward to have to do that or hope the model continues. If the regional model really does go away, where do you think pilots are going to come from?

Chuck D

I’m thinking Boston Dynamics, Tesla or Nvidia, no?

Baradium

Ok, that was a good one.


I will say though that it's nice to see people caring about where the pilots came from and wanting them to be from the regionals. There are a lot of guys there who have been working very hard for a very long time.

FlyingKat

Northwest tried something similar back in the mid 90s. Hired guys at UND with 250 hours, gave them Northwest seniority numbers and sent them to Mesaba to build time. Keep in mind at this time you had to have something like 5000 total and 500 multi just to get an interview at Mesaba. Instructors and APDs gave them no slack and something like 90 percent of their "intensely vetted" candidates failed training and the program ended.

Same thing here. HR can get them in the door, but they can't get them through training. Expecting these CFIs to perform in training like military or regional guys with thousands of hours in jets is going to be fun to watch. I don't expect United's instructors or APDs are going to give them a pass, so don't be surprised to see this blow apart once these guys actually get in the training pipeline.

Like many things at UAL, what looks like a good idea to the suits in the Willis Tower turns into a cluster in the real world. We'll see what happens when these guys actually hit the training department.

baseball

Paying dues is akin to gaining experience.

Even in a law firm they assign a senior experienced attorney to mentor a new attorney. The new attorney is paid commensurate with his/her qualifications. Attorney gets pay raises when he/she doesn't require baby-sitting and gets results.

Engineers, Doctors, etc, all "pay their dues." They all get entry-level experience before they move on to more complex assignments.

baseball

ALPA is right. No substitute for Experience. I believe it to be true.

No one, in any phase of my career had to tell me, or remind me that I needed to pay my dues. I knew it before I got into the business. I assumed, and presumed that it was compulsory and necessary for me to advance. It seemed logical to me and I am grateful for the journey and the experience along the way.

You are right though on one point. No one cares what you are going through. The Suits, the traveling public, the share-holders, nor co-workers. No one is going to be mentally and emotionally invested into what you are going through. It's your journey, and your choice. No one drafted you into this career.

This career is "back loaded". I recently had the privilege of having lunch with a senior Captain who did my Captain IOE. This Captain was parting ways with United and was getting ready for his retirement flight. I've known him for nearly 20 years, and it was a delight to listen to his wisdom over the years. His idea of "back loaded" is this: You don't really realize your earning potential as a wide-body Captain until you have the seniority to enjoy it, and that seniority comes from moving up and sometimes out of an airline to get into a better position and by gaining experience along the way. Sooner or later, you hope you end up at a financially healthy company with the seniority to realize your full financial potential. But, allot has to happen for that to work out. If you pay your dues young in life the odds are significantly in your favor.