AA to hire in 2003!

[TWA Dude]

I work for a company that is earning a lot of money (though not yet a profit), and have an expectation of a job, since I was hired by AA in the (summer, fall) of 2001. Also, all of these TWA people, who were working for a bankrupt airline, had no job expectations in 2002. They expected to be out of business.

Who now deserves the job?

Simple answer: neither.

Nobody "deserves" a job. This whole thing isn't and never was about you or I, but about business. For whatever reasons, good or bad, AA bought the assets of TWA to increase their profits. When ANY business buys another jobs are both gained and lost; some are promoted and some are demoted. As you undoubtedly know, in non-union business workers' status and salaries are arbitrarily decided by managers of often dubious intelligence. There's nothing "fair" about how business is conducted. I'm therefore not using the word "fair" to describe our integration.

Many an up-and-coming highly profitable business has been bought by a larger corporation, only to see it's talent wasted through demotions or layoffs. Shouldn't the "career expectations" of the small company's employees count for something? Well, they don't.

How about jetBlue, for example. There's every indication that their pilots are in for a highly successful career. The company is profitable and growing. Their standards for hiring are as high as any major. Now, if AA were to purchase jetBlue do you deny for a second that the APA would see fit to staple their pilots? Frankly I believe any major pilot group would simply staple them. Use whatever reasoning makes you happy.

The APA did its job which was to protect the interests of its pilots. It just so happens that the TWA pilots had zero leverage with which to bargain and hence the APA was free to impose whatever it wished. As the victors, they are now free to claim whatever justification they care to. (For those unfamiliar, TWALPA rejected the APA's final offer and continues to not recognize its provisions. But of course it's going to happen anyway and very soon ALPA will be replaced by APA as our collective bargaining agent. Lawsuits will likely follow with little chance of changing anything, IMHO.)

I hasten to add that I'm not trying to argue points of TWA's integration. It's done and I'm never going to convince anybody to change their minds anyway. But I do object to those who seek to justify the provisions of Supplement CC by claiming TWA would've been out of business. I'm quite sure Carty gives a lot of money to charity, but purchasing TWA wasn't such an act. In business it's the purchaser who carries the power. The APA had the power and they used it. Respectfully, please stop trying to justify it.

 

[TWA Dude]

Re: Not-so-SuperDavi8tor.

...Typical ex-military pilot who thinks the world owes him an airline job.

Mr., thank you for the TWA compliments but I respectfully must disagree with you on the military thing. I've had a blast flying with both types of captains and I can see no reason to disparage any pilot group due to its large ex-military contingent. It's just not relevant.

 

[Hoss]

This guy (Superwhatever) is your typical ignorant ex-military pilot. "Once a military pilot, always a military pilot", right buddy? Unfortunately, it is also why many ex-military guys get a bad rap once they get to the airlines. Most of em believe that if you didn't "serve your country", you have no right flying for AA, Delta, etc. "Let the civilian guys go to America West and Frontier, I'll got to AA with my old squadron commander!"

Unfortunately, he doesn't realize that it doesn't matter where you came from, it just matters where you're at, and enjoying who you fly with. In this industry, there are more important things than displaying your old unit sticker on kitbags.

I'm sure your shoes are shined like mirrors, and your starched shirt is wrinkle-free, as you spank your 72 all the way down the runway...

 

[DIAMONDDD]

Hey Hoss, if it makes any difference, I am with TWA Dude on this one. I flew for TeeWay for two years and flew with MANY ex-military folks. Without exception, they were all really cool to fly with. I don't know, maybe they were jerks before I ever got there, but after more airline experience, they mellowed out. As far as I could see, I couldn't tell the ex-military folks from the regional folks from the corporate folks. I see you flew/fly in the guard, are YOU a jerk like that? It doesn't appear to me that you are. You are right on one thing though, once you make it, it doesn't matter where you came from. No one cares if you flew Lears, F-14's, or the space shuttle, if you can do the job and get along, it doesn't matter.

 

[Hoss]

I'm just making comments from what I'VE seen around me... and I am a military pilot (currently at Eagle, and part-time ANG). It's just no wonder why the term "Sky Nazi" is in place. Everyone at AA still think and act like they're in the military, even if they've been out for years. If I had a nickel for every "Phantoms Phorever" zap I've seen. It's just not suprising to me that this guy enjoys using the term "TWABS" and "TWAliban". You usually only hear this sort of drivel from some sort of ex-military type that has never flown civilian before getting hired at American, and really has no clue about the non-military road to the airlines. You have to realize that even if the entire TWA list had been stapled, a lot of AA would STILL complain about those "non-qualified" TWA guys getting a "gift", when they really don't deserve it. Maybe if you had some common ground with him (i.e. in his old fighter unit), he'd understand your situation better. Until then, enjoy flying with this idiot for the rest of your career.

 

[jppt2000]

Why do you let Morons like this bother you?
Do you realize this could be some 13 year old kid having a great time making you guys get upset?
Just like the Muslims, the vast majority are peace loving, saddly a small tiny vocal minority have brought on a huge amount of misery.
Please don't ruin this board like the other AA guys did at AOL, and Planebusiness. If you indulge idiots like this guy, the board will simply close down.

 

[SFR]

Attention Ex-Military & Civilian guys/gals:

So how is it that a 100% civilian guy is less qualified for a job at a major than you? I am curious on this perspective. I am a captain for a regional airline and I can say first hand that I have flown with both ex-military and civilian folk. 99% of the time they are all great!!! I have had bad apples in there, and YES a few were ex-military.

I don't see how spending 10 years of your life in the military automatically qualifies you for a major airline. But, on the other hand 10 years at a regional airline does not either.

I believe in individualism, which I feel that most will agree is probably true. Whether civilian or military, it does not matter to me. I want to share the cockpit with a competent and easy to get along with individual.

Lets be realistic for a minute. We have to face it that flying is not too difficult to do. Whether a civilian or military background, we can all (99% again) be trained to fly a 777.

So why the arguing??? Waste of time???

My answer is simple. Do what you want to do!!! If you want to fly fighters...go do it!!! If you want to fly a Beech 1900, go do it!!! You only live once. You don't want to be on your deathbed and wish that you would have done something else.

As far as this prejudice of military vs. civilian and vice versa, Drop it!

Create peace...and help eachother out!!!


SFR aka Shroth

 

[profile]

As someone with a civilian background, I can easily answer the "great mystery" of why major airlines prefer military.

Military pilots are much more of a "known" quantity. What sort of training they received is known. The standards they had to perform to are known. Their service record is easily obtainable, so you have a good picture of the individual both from the flying perspective and outside of the cockpit as well. The flight time is also easy to verify, plus medical standards that are tough and standardized.

So, while military pilots that are, shall we say, "substandard" do slip through, that is not the norm and most substandard types don't make it very far in military aviation (always exceptions, of course!).

Now, contrast this with civilian background. Could be that you have the best pilot in the world, or you could just have a pilot that had a daddy rich enough to buy his/her jobs until they had the flight time to be competitive. Could have had the greatest primary instruction, or might not really have a concept of what they are doing -- just fly by rote. Maybe had an actual aerodynamics or meteorolgoy course, or may have learned what they know from a CFI that didn't really understand the material, etc.

In the end, the airline has the brief "snapshot" during the interview process to find out about a person. An analogy might be choosing your spouse out of many with just 3 days of brief interviews and tests. Would you not lean towards those that you could get a life history of their past relationships, easy to verify work and medical history, etc?

So, while it may not be "fair", the airlines will continue to prefer military trained pilots and they have very valid reasons for doing so.

Now, as a civilian you have the possibility of getting hired at a younger age (I was hired at 26, no military pilots have my seniority/age combination!), so, while military aviation is a more assured path to the job, there are some advantages to the civi route! Make your choices accordingly.

 

[DIAMONDDD]

Profile, I can pretty much agree with your statements on why you feel the mil. folks get preferencial interviewing. I might add one more. Back when the airlines were getting started, the vast majority of guys flying were from the military. Over the years, these same guys were in charge of hiring. They hired what they knew. I think there are still a lot of guys in the position to hire pilots that are from the military. It also helps if you know a bunch of people that can write LOR's. I only know (personally) two guys that were hired at AMR. One had SIX LOR's from guard buddies, one had FIVE. That is tough to compete with.
BUT, this Mil. vs. Civ. thing has been beaten to death over the last few years. We kind of got off topic.

 

[EAP]

Yeah, but over the last two years, the civilian new hires at the largest major airlines outnumbered the military new hires according to AirInc numbers. Some of the reasons are due to the reduced number of military pilots, but also (IMHO), some of it goes to the fact that more and more civilian pilots are the old guard now at the majors. You are more likely to be interviewed by an all civilian captain in the interview now, more than ever before, and the trend will continue in the future.

I'm still amazed by the high percentage of captains I've flown with lately that came up the ranks from the commuters to the majors. When I first got on in '98 it was mostly military guys, but now a lot of upgrades are the ex commuter civvies.