AirlineEcon From United States, joined Feb 2007, 77 posts, RR: 0 Posted (2 years 8 months 3 days 11 hours ago) and read 8743 times:
I have a several questions about pilots that I bet a lot of you could address. (This is my first topic starter on A.net)
I was under the impression that to fly commercial jets in the US its almost impossible to do it without first having flown for the military. I guess this isn't true anymore in the US, but do military pilots have better job prospects? Second what about pilots in countries besides the US. For example do Korean, Korean Air pilots start out in the military?
Is there, (or was there) an old boys network among pilots? Just for example, are AA pilots ex-navy and prefer new hires that are ex-navy. And UAL pilots ex-airforce and hire ex-airforce.
A few more to go...
What about pilots flying for foreign airlines? Are Cathay pilots from Hong Kong or Korean air pilots from Korea? I suppose not, but is there a shift from foreign to local pilots on these airlines? Do local ones get paid less?
Finally, with all the talk about foreign ownership of airlines in the US, are there foreign pilots that fly jets for US airlines? If not, is there strict regulation that prohibits it? What about Europe?
Most employers have hiring minimums for pilots, they include total time, multi engine time for most airlines, and some even want jet time. While total time is easy to build as is multi time as a flight instructor it is hard to get jet time as a civilian without a real job. Unless you have money or know somebody, we all know it's about who you know, not what. As far as having better job prospects a military pilot will most likely have an ample amount of jet time logged in a very structured and safety oriented way, thus making a resume with military experience look a bit better. Not to say we civilian pilots are out of luck, hell, I am one. We just work harder at showing off other sides of our abilities.
AFAIK anyone who is going to command a FAA registered aircraft is going to have a FAA issued license. As far as I know this is the same in other countries. This is why Boeing and Airbus put temporary registrations on new aircraft, so their test pilots can fly the plane. Then the registration for the airline is painted on, the airline takes delivery and sends its own crew to take the craft home.
HAL From United States, joined Jan 2002, 1789 posts, RR: 50 Reply 3, posted (2 years 8 months 3 days 11 hours ago) and read 8661 times:
Where do we come from?
Well, there's this special magical tree deep in the forbidden forest, and on nights when the moon is full a circle of elfin maidens appears out of the darkness and starts dancing around the tree to the throbbing beat of Whitney Houston music...
Oops, almost let the secret out there!
In all seriousness (ha - bet you never thought you'd hear an airline pilot say that!!), the airlines in the US today are mostly made up of civilian pilots, especially those hired in the last ten years or so. The US military has been shrinking the number of pilots turned out each year, and has been doing more to retain those that they have for longer periods of time. Most civilian US pilots these days have either gone through an aviation school/college like Embry-Riddle, or gone the old fashioned way (as I did) of getting their ratings at the local flight school and picked up time by being a flight instructor, parachute jump pilot, cargo pilot etc.
At the majors (at least the ones I've been to) there is a sort of old-boy network, but it mostly applies to people that the current pilots know, not necessarily pilots from a particular branch of the military. Personal recommendations count for a lot when an airline hires, because there are a lot of pilots that may meet the minimum requirements to fly for an airline, but the airline also wants pilots that they have some knowledge of in terms of their personality and flying skills & habits. That comes from personal knowledge of that applicant by another current pilot at that airline. It's a small business, and who you know counts for a lot.
You don't have to be a US citizen to fly for a US airline, but you do have to have at least a green card.
HAL
One smooth landing is skill. Two in a row is luck. Three in a row and someone is lying.
Graphic From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 4, posted (2 years 8 months 3 days 11 hours ago) and read 8613 times:
Quoting HAL (Reply 3): Well, there's this special magical tree deep in the forbidden forest, and on nights when the moon is full a circle of elfin maidens appears out of the darkness and starts dancing around the tree to the throbbing beat of Whitney Houston music...
I came from mommy and daddy's special night out, does that mean I can't be a pilot now?
AirlineEcon From United States, joined Feb 2007, 77 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (2 years 8 months 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 8583 times:
Quoting Graphic (Reply 4): I came from mommy and daddy's special night out, does that mean I can't be a pilot now?
OK: bad title for the topic
Another question: Do pilots have a lot of job mobility? Can you bounce around from airline to airline to advance your career, or do you tend to stick with one your whole career?
For the jokers out there, of course they have job mobility, their job is to move hunks of metal around the globe.
Being a pilot is all about senority. The longer you stay at one place the more older people retire and you move up the list. If you change jobs generally you are put on the bottom of the senority list for the new company. Many pilots stay at one major job their whole life.
Senority affects everything, the routes you bid on, the times you work/are off, the aircraft you fly, ect. The more senior you are the better chance you have of getting to fly routes you like, when you want to fly them, on the aircraft type that is your favorite.
There is something about the seniority system that strikes me as quite odd. For just about every other high skilled professional job out there, people don't just wait for the guy above them to retire. They bid their services around to lots of companies and get promotions that way. And if you're the guy above, you always have to worry about somebody taking your place who could do a better job.
You hear reports that the average college grad will have something like 9 jobs in their career. In theory, this sort of job mobility promotes efficiency.
Why not the same for pilots? My hunch is that its an artifact of the labor union contracts. (Lets not start a conversation criticizing pilot unions)
Graphic From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 11, posted (2 years 8 months 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 8447 times:
Quoting AirlineEcon (Reply 10):
Why not the same for pilots? My hunch is that its an artifact of the labor union contracts. (Lets not start a conversation criticizing pilot unions)
AlexPorter From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 12, posted (2 years 8 months 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 8439 times:
Quoting BladeLWS (Reply 2): They come in 747's instead of storks!
LOL
That's the first thing I thought when I saw the title, too!
Except I was gonna say something more like "A 737 painted like a stork flies over the house and drops baby pilots down the chimney."
But on a more serious note, I believe that a good portion of pilots come from the military. It is common to find Air Force Academy graduates flying commercial jets.
Well, there's this special magical tree deep in the forbidden forest, and on nights when the moon is full a circle of elfin maidens appears out of the darkness and starts dancing around the tree to the throbbing beat of Whitney Houston music...
LOL! Don't let him fool you - there really is whitney houston music involved, but the circle of elfin maidens is probably only something that occurs in the "production" of SOME airline pilots
You can say that, but (without getting into pro/con union hype) there is a reason for it; one agreed upon years ago by the airlines and the unions.
In a job where safety is paramount and so much responsibility and thousands human lives ride on the shoulders of the pilots, both the airlines and unions decided that there should be a way to take 'politics and greed' out of the hiring/promotion part of the equation. The thought ran that if you were promoted based on performance as judged by the company, some pilots would cut corners to look good to their bosses. Pilots might take chances, and maybe try and land in less than legal weather, or push a flight running low on fuel so they'll have a better on-time record than the next guy when upgrades were being handed out. If the hiring/upgrade/promotion part of the job was handled strictly on a seniority basis, then the possibility of getting a promotion based on unsafe actions was ruled out. In concert with that idea, the unions police their own members in order to ensure the highest level of safety is observed, and that we are all trained and tested to the highest possible level. Believe me, there are many, many eyes looking over our shoulders watching what we do, making sure we are safe and standard in what we do. If we fail a checkride or upgrade, we have very limited options for a 'redo' before we are on the street. We work for safety first, not to look good for possible promotions. Yes, this plan means that if we leave one job we end up back at the bottom of the seniority ladder at the new company. But in return, the flying public (and us pilots and our families too) have the knowledge that the airlines are being flown as safely as possible, without personal gain or greed on the part of the pilots being involved.
Now before you go and tell me that is so much tripe, think about how much office politics there is at your job where you have to vie for promotions not only with your co-workers, but with outsiders who want the job too. Haven't entire books, TV series and more been produced based on just such office backstabbing? Don't you think that such stuff should be (and is) removed from the hiring and promotion of airline pilots? Shouldn't the safety of our passengers (and in connection, ourselves) be the primary factor in how we work? I believe the answer is yes.
HAL
One smooth landing is skill. Two in a row is luck. Three in a row and someone is lying.
Quoting AirlineEcon (Reply 5): Can you bounce around from airline to airline to advance your career, or do you tend to stick with one your whole career?
Both occur. It partially depends on how your selected carrier fares. For example, imagine what the Eastern guys who got hired on at TWA were thinking in about 1995. It also depends on your goals. If, for example, Continental is your goal and no other airline will do, you will do whatever you need to do to be competative for the job. If a particular aircraft or level of income is you goal, you will alter your strategy accordingly. If you are fortunate, you
Quoting HighFlyer9790 (Reply 9): What is the hiring outllok 10 years from now do you think? will the legacies have a hiring trend due to retirements?
No one can say for certain. You might as well ask a magic 8 ball. Lots of theories though. Some people think it is a 7 year cycle, others a 12 year cycle. Some say even numbered years are better than odds.
Quoting AirlineEcon (Reply 10): There is something about the seniority system that strikes me as quite odd.
It was implemented to help reduce favoritism. It still occurs at non-union shops without a defined merit system.
Quoting AirlineEcon (Reply 10): You hear reports that the average college grad will have something like 9 jobs in their career. In theory, this sort of job mobility promotes efficiency.
Why not the same for pilots? My hunch is that its an artifact of the labor union contracts. (Lets not start a conversation criticizing pilot unions)
I dont know what leads you to believe this is the case. I can tell you for certain that many, if not the majority of pilots go through just as many companies as anyone else. There is more to it than just the majors. There are various flight schools, traffic watch, towing banners, flying pipelines, fire watch, hauling checks, 135 freight, charter passenger, commuters, regionals, etc. Your typical airline pilot may go through any number of these during thier career.
MCOflyer From United States, joined Jun 2006, 8078 posts, RR: 16 Reply 18, posted (2 years 8 months 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 8249 times:
Over at American Eagle there is a pilot named Sam who has lots of seniority. He has flown nearly all of thier a/c and will retire soon. Saw this in airliner world article.
JRDC930 From United States, joined Jan 2007, 905 posts, RR: 0 Reply 19, posted (2 years 8 months 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 8225 times:
Hi welcome to Anet, as a student pilot myself finishing up my instrument rating, i can tell you its not necessarily impossible to fly airliners without flying for the military. Im going to a flight operations program at a college in Salt Lake city. the downside however is its quite a bit more expensive (guaranteed debt for at lest 10-15 years), and you dont necessarily finish up with enough hours to get hired. the outlook for the next 5 years based on my information at my school is good especially with large pilot shortages expected. In SLC for example SkyWest is hiring like crazy and is expected to for at least 5 to 6 years. The hardest part of training outside the military is getting Multi-engine time, its the most expensive and hard to come by. My school does have a multi-engine trainer thou, a Piper Seminole, but i dont really start that until i start my multi engine rating. In short there are lots of ways to become a pilot, but the military is probably one of the cheapest, but also the hardest to get into. The military is highly selective, but you can get almost as good a training at a good flight college as in the military. Hope this helps, im not an airline pilot Yet, but i think ive got a decent idea of how to get there...
JRDC930
U.S. Legacy carriers,STILL leaders in lowering industry standards...
CirrusDriver From United States, joined Nov 2006, 134 posts, RR: 0 Reply 20, posted (2 years 8 months 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 8204 times:
Quoting AlexPorter (Reply 12): "A 737 painted like a stork flies over the house and drops baby pilots down the chimney."
Now days, baby pilot's are shot through the window on a laser guided missile system, by a 737 painted like a stealth bomber. Some are more like bunker busters (see some Mesa pilots).
I am taking the expensive route. With a pair of 4 year degrees, and a jumbo sized "flying" loan I am in trouble when the deferment period expires! I now instruct at an academy in Glendale, AZ. where we are currently under review from the Chinese government to train they're future pilots.
HighFlyer9790 From United States, joined Jul 2005, 1213 posts, RR: 0 Reply 21, posted (2 years 8 months 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 8204 times:
Quoting MCOflyer (Reply 18): Over at American Eagle there is a pilot named Sam who has lots of seniority. He has flown nearly all of thier a/c and will retire soon. Saw this in airliner world article.
if that was repsonce to my post, sorry i meant that seniority cant be carried airline to airline...
Its part of the price you pay. You won't go straight from a flight school to a United or a Southwest. Each time you change jobs you have to weigh what you are gaining verses the loss of seniority. Its a fact of life in the business, like the medicals and checkrides. No sense in complaining about it. Accept it or find a way to change it.
Same as me... it will be interesting to see how i pay off my loans on the measly salary a Regional Airline Pilot makes, but at least it will be something i love to do, its too bad that the military options are much less viable now days...
U.S. Legacy carriers,STILL leaders in lowering industry standards...
JetJeanes From United States, joined Oct 2004, 1288 posts, RR: 0 Reply 24, posted (2 years 8 months 3 days 7 hours ago) and read 8100 times:
I think Cathay pacific is the only airline ive heard of hireing a greenhorn off the street and send him to school to fly a 747.. they must have some intense training
Graphic From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 25, posted (2 years 8 months 3 days 7 hours ago) and read 8082 times:
Quoting HAL (Reply 15): Now before you go and tell me that is so much tripe, think about how much office politics there is at your job where you have to vie for promotions not only with your co-workers, but with outsiders who want the job too.
Actually I'm an unemployed student pilot, aspiring to be the airline pilot type
While we're on the subject of unions, I think the things you say are very true, the only problem I have with the unions is the favoritism they seem to have with higher seniority, not so much for promotional purposes like you describe, but specifically, pay issues. Technology is progressing to the point where, except the actual hands-on driving, flying a CRJ is going to be about the same workload as a 767 (it seems). I'm not advocating a flat pay scale by any means, but when the newbies to the industry find themselves doing the overall bulk of the flying, for pay that barely breaks the poverty line, whereas the 58 year-old vets fly only about whenever they want to just meet minimums and get paid very handsomly to boot, its kinda unfair (yeah I know, you work longer you get rewarded, life is tough, yada yada).
Examples of pay scales:
USAirways A330 captain 16yrs: $160/hr x 72hour/month guarantee = $138,240/yr
Flying 72 flight hours/month, say an average A330 flight is 8 hours duration, means that an A330 captain at US works for 9 days a month. That's at minimum hours. I'll wager a guess that a US A330 captain spends 14 days a month at work, and probably spends 10-12 hours actually "at work" with one, maybe two flights to work.
Pinnacle CRJ F/O New hire: $21/hr x 75hour/month guarantee = $18,900/yr
Flying 75 flight hours/month, say an average CRJ flight is 1.5 hours, means that a CRJ F/O at 9E works just about a full schedule, say 20 days a month, averaging 2.5 flights a day. Since it's damn near impossible to fly half a flight , I'll say 3 flights a day. So 3 legs of 1.5 = 4.5 flight hours, + 45 minutes between the two flights = 6 hours, plus an hour at work before first flight/after last flight, means a Pinnacle pilot is probably working 8 hours every day, assuming everything runs completely smoothly (I keep feeling like 8 is a low number, anyone care to correct?). Quite often things don't (as the NW 757 at LAS thread demonstrates), on that last flight of the day, the pilots could have been awake for almost 24 hours before even starting the flight. At what point do I, as a passenger, have to question the safe completion of the flight because the flightcrew can barely keep their eyes open?
A question for the pilots on here: How many of you have been the guy that looked over to the person in the seat next to you, to see your other crewmember nodded off in their seatstraps? How many of you have been the guy nodded off in the seatstraps? Under normal conditions, I'm sure it's perfectly safe, but what if something goes wrong? How would you react if you woke up to alarm bells?
26 Curmudgeon: My airline does this from time to time. The only catch is the applicant has to have $110,000 for the training, after which a job is pretty much a give
27 AirlineEcon: Chinese aviation is growing quickly, and I guess they don't have enough home grown pilots yet. What are the pros/cons of flying in China? Is it a fas
28 HAL: Graphic, there is a fairly simple explanation to the pay scale differences; A330 Captain = 300+ lives he has final responsible for CRJ FO = 1 life he
29 Graphic: My current instructor is also instructing future China Air Lines pilots as per their contract with my school, and there are also quite a few Saudi Ar
30 HAL: Graphic, I agree with everything you're saying. I've been through many CRM classes over the years and I fully agree with what the process is trying to
31 AirCanada014: My joined the Royal Canadian Airforce for 10years and with all of his experience of flying with the AirForce he decided to join the airline, Air Canad
32 Burnsie28: Not anymore, most of the pilots in the military are older when they come out, airlines are also looking towards places like University of North Dakot
33 AA717driver: Graphic--HAL is being very polite and charitable. I think you will have a very different idea of how things work 10-15 years from now. The decision-ma
34 727forever: Anyways, back on topic a bit... Think of it from a building blocks perspective. Your first "airline" job will probably be flying a turboprop or rj for
35 Jpdflymhtmlb: As far as how the industry is looking over the next couple of years, you can already start to see a trend right now, with many of the majors calling b
36 GeorgiaAME: The stork brings them, when they are very little.
37 Gr8Circle: From planet Earth, to the best of my knowledge...
38 TIA: While I see where you going with this, it's not that simple. I don't think that when you were flying in Alaska you were being less rigorous about you
39 F4f3a: In the us it seems from the posts that the flight deck is an autocratic environment and that the Fo has limited responsibilites and role. In my compan
40 Yflyer: Funny that this thread should come up now, because I had a sort of related question I was thinking of starting a thread about. When a pilot is applyin
41 Lowrider: No. In fact, at many regionals, a pulse is sufficient, currently. Usually, with a few notable exceptions. Southwest requires a 737 type to be hired.
42 Brettbrett21: Ryanair currently only wants 200 total and 100 multi: Entry requirements To qualify as cadet applicants must have a valid JAR Frozen ATPL (Air Transp
43 CirrusDriver: From what I have heard (believe me, that's not saying much) my flight school has offered to conduct the training for ALL of China's future pilots, in
44 AirlineEcon: Wow! They must be really short of Pilots
45 Threepoint: Many larger carriers used to do this (BA comes to mind), but most have abandoned the ab-initio cadet training approach. And yes, the training and the
46 HAL: I think you missed the point somewhat on this. I was trying to say that it isn't the pilot who cared less if involved in an accident, but rather the
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