Airhoss

Indeed…It was not.

You have one item that is almost correct the rest is completely wrong.

ThumbsUp

Where do these rumors even come from? It’s not as if it’s hard to figure out. NVM, he doesn’t work here.

baseball

We have a situation in our industry right now where we have a lack of experience in the left seat, the right seat, and in the Instructor/Check Pilot seat. The lack of experience is just the end product that we discuss "generically." What does it boil down to: lack of experience really translates to lack of judgment from lack of opportunities to make decision. Lack of Flight Experience means your learning curve needs to mature really fast to get to the point where you are competent and dependable. Is the diversity issue interfering here?

89Pistons

The lower experience levels are spread across all races and genders. At all airlines that are currently hiring.

baseball

That is true....However, some airlines will go out of their way to pull in more of these candidates to increase their net "coolness score." Or, other some dumbness metrics. When you go out of your way to increase the number of marginally qualified pilots you place a very high burden on your training and safety management systems. So...so much responsibility of the LCA's. The corporation makes decisions that your LCA's have to deal with at the end of the day. Personally, if I ran an airline, I would make zero mention of "diversity initiatives." And simply hire the best candidates I could find. The best candidates I could find would, at the end of the training program decrease the burden on my LCA's and increase the safety of the operation. If Safety is number one, then everything else is secondary. Scenario: Applicant A: 2500 hours, 1000 jet, non DIE candidate. Applicant B: 1500 hours, zero turbine, non DIE candidate....which one do I hire? Which one places a lower burden on my training program and my LCA's? That's how it was done in the past. Today....HR is in there doing their thing and they are pushing their DIE program. Heck, the DIE program is HR and HR is the DIE program. Flight Operations at UA is not superior to the other departments, but a lateral peer. Flight Operations is in a "missile silo" set alone in their own little world and they are bossed about by a former HR manager. It may be smart to tap the brakes and get some safety management system consultants in there and evaluate the operation. As I recall this is their third bent airframe in 4 years. 2 757's and 1 767. This is naturally excluding the recent mechanical at IAD. The situation was caused by the FO, but the CA will own the outcome.

baseball

I have flown with a few overseas pilots who were widebody CA's from the ME3 carriers. All good pilots. They don't know anything about ALPA, contracts, or unions....Totally different topic...sorry. Question? Do we or have we hired new hires into WB fleets in the past? Yes. However, from 1997 to 2005 what was their overall experience level? From 2006 to 2015 what was their overall experience level? From 2016 to 2020 what was their overall experience level? From 2021 to today...what is it? There is a correlation to lower experience levels to higher incidence rates. We see it not only in avaition, but other professions too. The B756 fleet is the most challenging fleet to fly. I like how Delta does it...."Separate fleet types". 757 pilots fly the 757. 767 pilots fly that....That really helps your Safety Management System and helps the maturation and experience profile.

Swakid8

You are reaching with the diversity stuff. The experience level with pilots have dropped across the board in the industry. That goes for White, Black, Males, Females LBTQ, or Straight pilots.

When you are looking at past hiring, you have to take look at the hiring environment across the industry as a whole.

1997 to 2005, there wasn’t a shortage of experience pilots in the hiring pool to draw from…

2006 to 2016 was the lost decade…. Lots of experienced pilots in the pool to draw from….

Post Covid, you have a pool of experienced pilots have started to dry up. Airlines have to cover their retirements and early outs from a pool that has shrunk considerably. Theres a vacuum of then empty pilot pipeline that emptied out during the lost decade. That pipeline has started to fill back up. The military pilot pool also has shrunk vs what it used to be prior and during the lost decade….

TFAYD

more experience is clearly better than less. But what marginal returns do you get? And does it really matter?

all pilots hired meet FAA and insurance standards. The occasional tail strike or hard landing is the cost of doing business. At least that’s how management looks at it

whats the alternative? Not hire folks and stop growing / falling behind?

baseball

The alternative is you either put safety a priority or you don't. Hiring of experienced pilots should take precedence and priority. Privately, many LCA's speak very negatively on what's going on. You can either tap the brakes voluntarily, or it will be done for you. The FAA is definitely going to increase in their surveillance of everything. They just don't have a choice. The AQP training program was designed for "experienced pilots." The entire training program from zero to hero needs to be re-thought of, and re-imagined if we are going to hire pilots with this low of an experience level. There were more qualified applicants out there the day this person was hired. This was a self-induced problem that corporate HR created and the LCA's are forced to solve.

A MX inspection for a tail strike is one thing, but removing 3 airframes from service is a bigger deal. Thats 9 CA positions and 16 to 20 FO's per airframe that can't be/won't be staffed. That's how many RASM's/PRASM's of lost revenue? How many routes will be cut and removed? You really can't replace WB airframes. How many gates will UA lose because UAcan't service the route. Many air frames scrapped during heavy checks due to corrosion. Combine those fleet reductions due to heavy mx problems with these problems and you see a fleet that is dying very fast.

baseball

I think you made my point for me. Experience is a good thing. A necessary thing. Bean counters can't put it in their calculator, so it ****es them off. When there's a problem and experience is a part of the equation they will change the subject. Maybe the industry is growing too fast for the amount of qualified applicants available in the potential hiring pool? The USAF doesn't lower it's hiring standards for their test pilot school. They also don't lower the bar for their end product out of basic pilot training, or their follow on airframe specific training. The airlines aren't designed to "teach" the fundamentals of flying swept wing jets. It's not a "flight school." They teach you systems via CBT and give you cockpit trainers, and simulator sessions designed to teach professional pilots how to be successful as "airline pilots." Go from a corporate jet, or a turbo prop, or a military jet, or an RJ, and I think this is a "can do." But, I am presuming you already have about 2000 hours PIC time and a good amount of jet time. That's what AQP is all about.