How was the ATL job fair?

[pilotyip]

Bobby, should have been there in your prime when you were looking for that flying job, this weekend your timing would have been perfect. You would have walked out of there with a pilot's job.

 

[boxjockey]

None of you are taking into account that the FAA predicts a 100% growth in commercial air traffic over the next 15 years. Combine that with the massive number of approaching retirements, even if moved back five years, is still going to lead to a huge number of flying jobs.

box

 

[pilotyip]

Another believer!

 

[bobbysamd]

Kit Darby "job" "fairs"

Bobby, should have been there in your prime when you were looking for that flying job, this weekend your timing would have been perfect. You would have walked out of there with a pilot's job.

I know all about Kit Darby job fairs. As old George Bush used to say, "Been there, done that." I did go to a Kit job fair in 1993, when I was in my "prime," and, except for meeting Irv Jasinski, walked out with nothing but a lighter wallet. The lectures were all the same job-hunting stuff that I had read in Kit literature for six years.

I have a lot of respect for your opinion, but a newspaper article?? That's stretching it.....

The newspaper sources are far more reliable than Kit's hocus-pocus anytime. Further,

[T]he FAA predicts a 100% growth in commercial air traffic over the next 15 years. Combine that with the massive number of approaching retirements, even if moved back five years, is still going to lead to a huge number of flying jobs.

With all due respect, Kit has been disseminating the same palaver for eighteen years. That has been his basis all these years for his "forty thousand pilots needed" baloney.

You learn the truth about Kit's pilot shortage nonsense the moment you start sending resumes. If there was really a shortage and such a need for pilots, and recruiters having such trouble filling classes as Yip alleged, companies would be beating your doors down to interview you and send you to class. The truth is they don't. Phones hardly ever ring, if they ring at all. And, responses to your efforts are a miniscule few compared to the trees felled for the paper you sent out. That, my friends, is the truth about Kit's "pilot shortage."

 

[Dude]

Why pay for it?

I don't understand why everyone is jumping on these job fairs. Yeah, you might meet some folks but I am not going to pay $215 just to meet someone. As pilots, we are a disappointing group...........not only will we pay to work for you, we will pay you to be interviewed. Kit Darby is a baffoon.

 

[pilotyip]

Bobby 93 was a bad year for flyings jobs, kinda like 03. But 05 is the start of the great upturn. You should have been there, it would have been your turn. There is definte pilot shortage in the regionals

 

[Crossky]

Any comments positive/negative on the ATL job fair on 4-16? Any specific comments or news given on the AirTran tour on Saturday morning.

Just wanting to know how bad I should feel for missing the event due to work. I was afraid to call in sick being that half my airline might be there trying to get a job w/ AirTran.

Thanks.

My first one, it was a good event, just at least $50 too much and if Kit toned it down by half it would be about right. Needed more regional wannabe pilots, the regional booths were empty at the job fair. Pinnacle is hard up, and the turboprop regionals and cargo outfits seemed that way too. That's where this next 'boom' is going to come from. 50% of CAL and a good portion of the other majors retiring over the next decade will help some too. It's just going to take a few years to get that in effect.

AirTran's training facility tour was for job fair attendees (and their spouses) ONLY. I saw multiple 'weasels' there crashing the tour without AIR Inc. name tags, and a couple I talked to (military incidentally) volunteered to me that there were just there to go on the tour and hobnob with the AT folks, and they hadn't gone to the seminar/job fair. Not gonna pass judgement on that behaviour here and now but I was surprised to see it, what if AT took offense to it or your brass found out?

The tour itself was the bonanza of the whole job fair IMO. Maybe 15-20 AT pilots were volunteering their time to help out and hang out, and many important other folks were there. There was even a gold star attendance list to be signed, and an AT pilot testified to that effect. They gave a pep talk in their ground school classroom with refreshments and snacks. They are very confidnent of their future and put forth the company culture in a big way. Good times.

 

[b757driver]

Have to agree with Bobby and disagree with Yip.
I used to belong to FAPA before it became Air Inc and I drank gallons of the Kool Aid being dispensed. I became informed about the impending pilot shortage and how to write cover letters and behave in interviews (like I did not have a clue previously!). You know what? I NEVER got a single interview from any of those job fairs - not even the thanks, but no thanks! In the end even the "counselors" gave up on me because they, frankly, had nothing NEW to offer me. I already had an ATP, jet time, international experience etc. In other words, I was not a gullible pilot wannabe - I was a professional pilot looking for a new job and had the credentials. The ONLY thing lacking was the opportunity! I did not renew my subscription as I had literally spent thousands buying into the hype with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to show for it. Any interviews/jobs I did get were not as a result of attending any job fair or buying the "how to become an airline pilot" book. It was based on hard, old-fashioned work and persistence. No recommendations or sponsors. Heck, I did not KNOW anyone in the industry back then, so why should that automatically discount me from consideration. After all, we are all "equal opportunity" employers. Some more than others. The best statement I've heard recently is that a certain airline that now requires "sponsors" to get an interview for you are being told to only put forward buddies that are not "high risk" candidates. Talk about rich!! High risk, pleeze! The whole F*&^% industry is high risk!! I have outlived the vast majority of my former employers. They were the ones who were "high risk". Once again, only in America can a once conservative process become so diluted with diatribe and discrimination.
I've been in this business far too long to believe in statements like this. Frankly, the whole industry is becoming an old boys' network, hiring buddies with complete disregard to merit. You know the ones I'm referring to. Recall the word nepotism in the early 90s?
If you believe in any pilot shortage, then good luck to you. As a rival once said, "there is no pilot shortage, there never was one and there never will be one". Based on personal experience the past 2 decades, I'm more inclined to go with the later than the former.
I'm sure Uncle Kit was happy to have you there and ensure HE has a nice retirement package - even if you don't!

 

[bobbysamd]

"My Turn"

Apologies to the Newsweek column.

Bobby 93 was a bad year for flyings jobs, kinda like 03. But 05 is the start of the great upturn. You should have been there, it would have been your turn. There is definte pilot shortage in the regionals

Don't patronize me about "my turn," Yip. I know all about "my turn." I was there, Yip, in the latter part of 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 and part of the time during 1994, when I was in school. I had not given up entirely until 1995. Seven years of trying, Yip. During all those years, I swallowed all of Kit's palaver about how to get hired and read Career Pilot magazine religiously. I inhaled Kit's pilot shortage exhaust fumes until I realized from my telephone's silence that there was no pilot shortage.

During 1991 especially, hiring continued. I know, because instructors from my school who were less qualified than me but were younger were getting hired by the same regionals that ignored me. Besides, what would lead you to believe that my chances would have improved two years later? My quals had not changed. The clock had not turned back. Whatever perceived deficiencies there were with me in 1993 would have still been there in 1995. In other words, as Popeye said, "I yam what I yam," or, a leopard cannot change his spots.

I know that Xjets are hiring and perhaps Pinnacle (of Gulfstream P-F-T grads), but Mesa is pooling its MAPD grads.

 

[Carl_Spackler]

but I am not going to pay $215 just to meet someone.

That is your decision. People do get interviews because they show up at these events. I think it shows a little more ambition that a resume faxed or emailed every few months.