AEPS Bankruptcy

[bobbysamd]

Kit's business

Absolutely, Kit is operating a business. It's a business founded on getting customers. The trouble is, Kit's not being straight with his customers about the need for pilots.

Kit's customers are pilots who want to build a career. To attract, or should I say, lure, customers, Kit will appeal to their desires. These desires are to be professional pilots. Now, quite a few of Kit's clients knew they wanted a career and never gave "pilot shortage" a thought. But, quite a few of them dreamed of being pilots but didn't feel that the career was possible for them. So, enter Kit, with his "pilot shortage" spiel. "Forty-thousand pilots will be needed over the next ten years." He uses logic to support his claim, such as retirements and diminishing supplies of military pilots, which have been the airlines' preferred pilot source. He's told these folks what they always wanted to hear, and, voila, Kit has signed up another customer.

But, Kit isn't telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He is telling half-truths, i.e, sophistries. Sure, there are retirements, there are every year. And, the military is turning loose fewer pilots. However, Kit does not tell you that there are currently more than enough qualified pilots available to fill any vacancies and to cover expansion. My
G-d, with the number of qualified pilots available, you could staff a ton of new airlines! That is the truth! Don't take my word for it. Go ask, e.g., Frank Lorenzo, Dick Ferris, etc. Go back into history. Ask Ted Baker and E.L. Cord. None of these fine entrepeneurs had trouble staffing their airlines.

Kit and/or his company has opined, sort of, on P-F-T. Go read this page:

www.jet-jobs.com/articles/payartl.html . We had a big P-F-T discussion(s) several weeks ago and another poster found this link.

I'd love to read Kit's specific opinions on this issue.

 

[8sm]

Bobby,

You should have done better research before you relied on Kit's pilot shortage advise to start a career in aviation. If more than one airline turned you down perhaps they all saw something they did not like other than your age.

Kit has a business, we all have a choice whether to use it or not before spending thousands of dollars on lessons to get one of those pilot shortage jobs.

I'm sorry your dream of flying fulltime did not work out. It appears your present job affords you the time throughtout the day to respond to this board. Paralegal.......interesting.

Although interesting reading, your response did appear to come from a bitter pilot that did not make it.

Regards....8sm

 

[dispatchguy]

With all due respect dispatchers, airport managers, flight attendants, and mechanics dont count

None of those people are living on food stamps, spending $30,000 on ratings, another $60,000 on a college education and competing againist 5,000 other applicants for a single pilot position for which they are paid $18,000 to start after they have spent 10 yrs building flight time to realize their dream

Spoken like a true pilot (tongue-in-cheek of course) - fly safe!

But seriously, why not? I know dispatchers who spent their own $$ to get the Embry-Riddle 4 year degree, only to make 10 bucks an hour (and thats after license premium!) at Eagle working a 60 release/shift desk with an 0300 start time.

Student loans up past their eyeballs making 11 clams an hour. I knew one eagle dispatcher who also worked at UPS (I think it was UPS) as a box smasher in his spare time - just to make ends meet.

So, dont think for a second that pilots are the only group in this industry that spend a lot of coin to get their license - how much does a complete A&P cost?

It's your own vicious circle - you guys paid the high price to get there, and made the job so coveted thru the majors contracts, that everyone wants the job, so dont whine to me.

 

[bobbysamd]

8sm:

I decided to go into aviation full-time solely because I loved flying. Just like most everyone else. Hearing about Kit's "pilot shortage" certainly stoked my enthusiasm and made me believe that I had a good chance at a career. I had a couple of friends who had gotten hired, and I talked it over with people in the business before I decided to proceed. I didn't just plunge right into training from zero time. I already had all my single-engine ratings, including both CFI tickets. I earned them to put my flying on a paying basis. I had been flying for five years for pleasure, before I decided to change careers. At that point, all I needed were my multi ratings. So, paying thousands for a pilot shortage job to one of Kit's flight school advertisers was not an issue. In retrospect, I should have done that.

I'd love to know if something other than age caused the commuters to ignore me. I tried to find out from one interviewer and got nowhere. I presented the same or better quals to the airlines as my younger colleagues. Everything they asked for and more. They were just flight instructors, just like me. Nothing that would give them an advantage, such as 135 time. Maybe a couple had networked, but most had not. I was 40; they were in their early to mid 20s. See a pattern here? I do.

No one realizes more than me that resumes get lost in a shuffle. But, you'd figure that seeing updates from the same person several times a year would get someone's attention, and that someone would be perceptive enough to realize that this applicant must be very interested in working for the company and might turn out to be loyal employee who might make me, the pilot recruiter, look good to my superiors. Don't forget, Kit always preached persistence and optimism.

I was a FAPA customer because FAPA provided contact information and an entry into the hiring process. I didn't know how to begin. Providing information on how to begin was the reason why Lou Smith started FAPA in the first place, primarily to help separating military pilots.

You are right. Kit runs a business. However, it is unconscionable, I think, to run a business which is predicated on selling dreams founded on half-truths. Just ask airline H.R. I guarantee that it will tell you it has good, qualified applicants coming out of its ears right now. And, when the system absorbs those folks and it needs pilots, it just lowers the requirements and the void is filled.

I do appreciate and respect your sour grapes observation. However, I have a couple of friends who've had similar experiences, so I know I'm not alone.

 

[publisher]

Kit

Kit points out a number of things, obviously in a more detailed way than my explanation, but, it should be clear to all now that this conflict and legal issue revolves around UPAS.

I have no comment about Kits service, I think he does a reasonable job from some standpoints.

The fact is that he was trying to implement a charge to companies coming to his job fairs and it did not go through because they would not come. Companies come in many cases to provide information at the seminar stage of things.

It should also be clear that the reason Kit posted that information on his site is that he has an interest in the UPAS outcome.

ALPA did sell UPAS after suffering repeated and significant losses. According to some who should know, what was sold was not all there. I know when I went looking in their files for some information, there were traces that said other things were missing. The software is archaic and not web based.

I do know that ALPA and WED had been trying to settle issues for some time. While there may have been problems before September 11, they were exacerbated by it. I have been told that in fact ALPA did not want UPAS back in total, only parts leaving behind any liabilities.

The bottom line is that this situation is a microcosm of what is going on in this industry. September 11 has in fact effected us all and the legal parts will take years to sort out.

 

[LearAv8r]

Ok so maybe there have been SOME people hired by AEPS and UPAS but by looking at the past replies on this board it seems like there are a lot of pilots that haven't even been called by companies using AEPS or UPAS.

Like I said it is your choice and your money, you decide what is best for you. Somehow I think that the actual number of pilots hired by majors or regional using AEPS and UPAS are pretty slim. Even pre 9-11. Although this is just my thoughts and I don't think that I am that far off.


UPAS member for five years and not even one call. Interviewed at four majors and none of them were from AEPS or UPAS.

my .02

LearAv8r-

 

[publisher]

LearAv

As relates to UPAS,

TWA utilized this service as much as anyone and attended all the AEPS job fairs so people were hired. Delta was second and Alaska third. Did that mean that you did not have to have friends and letters of rec etc, No. Let's just say you averaged 10,000 active members pre 9/11 or so, what is your average of getting hired by one of these 4. Not that good. The thing about these databases is that they can be very specific as to what they want. Others are not even considered. It was basically who was there the day they put the group together for interviews and what their times were.

AEPS has resulted in more regional, corporate, and fractionals than majors, no doubt about it. Do these jobs not count. I don't think that we have ever had a job fair where people were not hired by Comair and others at those fairs. Does this not count? On this board you only get a very small sampling of people and many of them are looking. The people that were employed through these and are still where they went are not on this board.

 

[8sm]

Bobby,

We have limited time to sell ourselves once we get our foot in the door. Most of the time its not enough when many are knocking at the door. Anyone who took the time to explore your thought process would have realize your potential as an aviator, but most importantly a mentor i.e. PIC. You more than likely ran out of time.

I have the upmost respect for someone with your ability to intelligently express your thought process in written dialectic.
One of these days I'll get there.

My last observation: Get your law degree, you are a natural litigator.

Thank you for your response.

Regards......8sm

 

[bobbysamd]

bobbysamd, ATP CE-500, CFI, J.D.?

Thank you, sir. I'm too old for that, too, but I truly appreciate your thoughts I worked for an attorney who suggested that I go to law school. However, as improbable as it may seem, lawfirms also practice age discrimination. The kids in their mid-20s-early-30s are what they want, not someone like me who is already receiving AARP mail. They use the same rationale in evaluating applicants as does airline HR; that someone wanting a law career should have started for it when he/she was young, and that anyone wanting the career after forty must be some kind of dilletante and not serious.

You are absolutely right that we have limited time to sell ourselves. We work soooooo hard to make the mins. Don't get hired at the mins, published or actual, and, I truly believe, a scarlet letter is stamped on your (resume's) forehead. "What's the matter with this applicant? He beats the mins, but hasn't been hired??!! Don't bother with him", instead of just picking up the phone and chatting with him a few moments. Where's the harm? I sent materials to SkyWest for six years. I even had a former student who was hired there walk in a fresh app. I probably would have passed out in disbelief if SkyWest would have been on the other end of my phone.

You may be right that I ran out of time. I was getting older and more and more younger pilots were available. I thought that being older and having lived a little longer would make me worth a look. Just the same, even with all the laws that make age discrimination illegal, employers still practice it. Nothing written, but still institutionalized in every way.

I sure would enjoy seeing Kit address the older-pilot career-changer issue.

Thanks again, and fly safe.

 

[FL510GV]

AEPS, UPAS, AirInc.

AEPS, UPAS, AirInc., "acitve" member of all three. Do I NEED to be a member of any of them to get a job? No.

Any job that I am fortunate to get is probably the result of my 1)Qualifications 2)Persistence 3)Connections, in no specific order. It seems that a lot of people expect the pilot/aviation job services to be like the AB-DOMINATOR that you're thinking about buying off of late night TV Shop - pay a few bucks and get those rock hard abs while you watch WWF, but in this case it's pay a few more bucks and wait for the job offers to come streaming in while you watch WWF.

UPAS is dead. Publisher said it, "archaic software/not web-based...", and from all accounts, run poorly.

AEPS. Not likely to be useful for a job w/ a Major, but with my Type ratings this has proven to be a good source of keeping track of what's going on in the Corporate world. I have had several contacts via AEPS - no Majors, but good job openings that I wasn't available for. There are others that do a similar job - climbto350, AirNav, BizjetPilot.com, CorporatePilot.com -- the list is too exhaustive to complete (see http://www.landings.com/ for a good... for you is a part of the process. Godspeed.