Airlines Hiring "Very Substandard" Pilots

But then, in a good market, how does a poor rookie pilot get enough experience to get a job?

By towing gliders, flying skydivers, flying as an instructor, performing fire monitoring tasks (?), joining small companies which offer multi-engine and/or multi-crew experience etc. Much the same regardless of the market? You probably know more about this than I do.

IMHO it depends on the person’s aptitude, and to that effect they should develop tests capable of accurately determining that. I don’t believe such a foolproof test exists right now. Reminds me of a guy at a job interview, when asked about his past experience he replied, “If past experience was so essential, they would never have put a man on the moon!”. He got the job. 😀

AFAIK, pilot aptitude tests are in use by different air forces, some civilian FTOs and a number of airlines/operators. The tests are not necessarily “foolproof” but they may aid an examiner in obtaining an impression of a person and his/her aptitude for pilot training. Such testing can e.g. indicate the rate at which a student pilot should be expected to make progress.

IMHO, this is a labor issue. “Mainline” pilots in the U.S. have been saying the Regionals and low cost operators were unsafe for years……yet there have been very few accidents. The one in BUF last year brought the pilots back out in force.

There is currently a bill in the U.S. congress that would require 1,500 hours and an ATP for F/O’s…..labor friendly politicians are trying to start a labor cartel in order to raise pay and improve working conditions.

Usually very market related. If there is a dire shortage of pilots, they will hire guys with less experience. But then, in a good market, how does a poor rookie pilot get enough experience to get a job? IMHO it depends on the person’s aptitude, and to that effect they should develop tests capable of accurately determining that. I don’t believe such a foolproof test exists right now. Reminds me of a guy at a job interview, when asked about his past experience he replied, “If past experience was so essential, they would never have put a man on the moon!”. He got the job. 😀

IMHO, this is a labor issue. “Mainline” pilots in the U.S. have been saying the Regionals and low cost operators were unsafe for years……yet there have been very few accidents. The one in BUF last year brought the pilots back out in force.

There is currently a bill in the U.S. congress that would require 1,500 hours and an ATP for F/O’s…..labor friendly politicians are trying to start a labor cartel in order to raise pay and improve working conditions.

Hello,

Google is a good friend: http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/09/09/331991/aa09-pilot-handling-skills-under-threat-says-airbus.html

I don’t quite get the point that 4 of the 5 fatal accidents since 2004 were at the regionals.

Hello,

Me neither. There is intentional skewing of the statistics here, in favor of “mainline” aircrew – there does seem to be a them/us thing going on.

To be really conclusive you have to look at the bigger picture. You can argue that “regional” flying is more demanding due to the much more varied sectors flown, quick turnarounds and the similar duty periods.

It would be interesting to see the number of accidents per sectors flown, for both pilot groups.

A while back Airbus was talking about the dilution of pilot hand-flying skills due to all the automation, particularly in long-haul flying. I’ll see if I can dig out the article, from somewhere.

What about the other headline, the TSA staff using drugs? The fox watching the chickenhouse?

I don’t quite get the point that 4 of the 5 fatal accidents since 2004 were at the regionals. First they seem to pick that time frame to exclude the AA A300 in NY and second it could be pointed out that it’s amazing that no one was killed in the non-fatal accidents by the majors. In each case it seems they were on the cusp of the accidents being much worse. CO in Denver? AA in Jamaica? SWA in Chicago? (a child in the car was killed) FedEx in Tallahassee?

If they blame a crash at the Regionals because of flight time of the crew why don’t they mention it when it happens at the Majors? It’s as if they are trying to find something unique to the Regional crews/operations so they can seperate themselves from the accidents there and inflate their own worth.

My point that I’m poorly explaining is their argument isn’t universal. We’ve had 3 accidents at the major airlines since the fatal Q400 crash in Buffalo yet the attention seems to still be on blaming accidents on the experience level of that crew. If experience was a controlling factor then why did FedEx crash a MD-11 in Japan? AA crash a B737 in Jamaica? CO crash a B737 in Denver? Yet the goal seems to be to hang the Regional pilots out as inexperienced, accident prone amateurs.

Some of the pilots flying for so-called Low cost start up airlines are looking younger and younger these days ( or i’m just getting older) but i don’t think there is any real substandard pilots..most airlines have much the same strict employment criteria and psychological profiling as they’ve always had..you might get the odd one slip through now and again.. but the overall consensus is that pilots are intelligent dedicated professionals…just another media beat up i think