Does Pilot Quality Impact the Bottom Line?

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Occam...so what your really saying is...its about attitude??

 

[Thedude]

Pilot can make or brake a company and that usually depends on how the company treats their pilots. I have always laughed at those small companies that feel compeled to do those all day interviews. Maybe I just dont get it but I feel if the intervierwers know what they are doing they should be able to make a decsion in a couple of hours. I once did the all day interview with a company in the northern midwest and I was the only non-northern midwest guy there, so I got the spotlight. I almost felt like I was being single out and maybe even being ridiculed for applying for a job with that company. But then agaain it wasnt the good cop bad cop routine that CoTex used to pull in the mid 90's.

 

[FlyFlyFly]

Telling someone to bring a bag lunch to an interview is a screening technique. It has nothing to do with quality or skill of the pilot, they want the kind of person they can use as a doormat, so it is part of the screening process.

 

[FlyingSkip]

I agree w/ the first asertion, since I'm getting into this a little late. When I first left the military and took a sales position w/ a Fortune 50 corporation, they paid to fly me x-c to the interview, took me to a wonderful (read that as EXPENSIVE lunch) and generally treated me like I was a valued potential employee and that they wanted to impress me with how they treated their employees. Once I was onboard, it was even more of the same. Living in OH and training in Chicago, they flew me home every weekend to be with my family, paid for EVERY meal I ate during a 3 month training cycle, and put me up in a very nice long-term hotel with all the amenities.

Fast forward ten years and I decide to get back into aviation. I've had to b uy my own lunch while going to eat/meet with the Chief Pilot, DO etc at more than one potential employer, I've been expected to get paid NOTHING until I passed my checkride since THEY were taking such a risk hiring me, and I've stayed in establishments arranged through dispatch that would make a homeless person cringe. Why? Because like everyone else I haven't stood up and shouted "No More!" at the treatment!

As you said earlier, if you mention something like this you're likely to: a. be labelled a whiner, or b. told you don't understand the nature of aviation. What most of these rocket scientists don't understand is that there's nothing special about aviation that makes this happen, it's just a general "cheap" attitude by most employers and a "roll over and take it" attitude by most pilots. There's also an element of the same thing the military shows so many people---after an unpleasant event, those who have endured it view it almost as a badge of honor and tend to deride others who haven't undergone the same sort of treatment. "You haven't had to fly crappy stuff in terrible weather for little or no money? What are you, some sort of wuss?! Why, in the old days..." You get the point.

I'm not an airline guy, never have been and have sworn that I would go back to bartending or even digging ditches before I would ever subject myself to that sort of treatment. But is it much different on the charter side? Still trying to decide... I know it's not any better flying freight!

Every time you see/hear/read about people who are so intent on their future that they are willing to put up with anything in the present to get there (low-time guys working for next to nothing) and guys who are ONLY looking at the now with no emphasis on employee QOL, retention, long-term strategies or business development (the guys who are running most aviation companies large or small) then you can pretty much count on the outcome.

 

[pilotyip]

Free lunch when you interview at USA Jet Airlines, I hope you like Chinese buffets.

 

[GogglesPisano]

Free lunch when you interview at USA Jet Airlines, I hope you like Chinese buffets.

Only if the chef has a college degree.

just joshin' Yip

 

[wrxpilot]

Yeah, that's pretty amazing that you'd be expected to bring your own lunch to an interview. I've had several engineering interviews and never experienced anything like that. Pretty much without exception, it has been the company promoting why I should work there (and yes, a decent lunch is purchased). Also, I've always been reimbursed for relocation/moving expenses. I'd say 50% of the time I've been reimbursed for interview airfare.

I'm really becoming quite disgused w/ how crappy people are treated in aviation... There's no way I'd put up with a lot of the BS that goes on anyway. Maybe I'll just be one of those guys that does the CFI thing on the side, there's just too much SJS going on these days.

 

[pilotyip]

We don't want no chef with no college degree; we want one who has been to a good cooking trade school, with years of experience cooking in the finest restaurants. A person who can cook, not recite Plato, and Shakespeare

 

[NexPilot]

We don't want no chef with no college degree; we want one who has been to a good cooking trade school, with years of experience cooking in the finest restaurants. A person who can cook, not recite Plato, and Shakespeare

Most respected chef/culinary schools nowadays are accredited nationwide. That means they are college degrees-bachelors. But even with the degree, most good chefs haved at some point learned as apprentices early on.

No chef with no college degree means a chef with a degree; double negative there.

 

[pilotyip]

Nex, it was a joke since someone brought up the degree thing in the context of a free lunch. We don't need no stinkin degrees for anybody in this country. Translated it reads "We need all educated people we can get in this country to complete in the world market place". However, the degree has nothing to do with flying an airplane, it is only there to satisfy the HR dept