Shot at a legacy

[poor2thecore]

Good post. A few guys on the bottom of the SWA seniority list who are Capt upgrade hungry will probably leave for Delta. Some of the Airtran guys as well I would imagine.

Hiring has always been fluid when it comes to qualifications. It is only guess work at this point since there has been such a lengthy delay for the entire industry on the legacy side. Attitude will always be number one no matter your qualifications. With that considered I can see many young guys with a ton of 121 PIC time getting picked up. After that, as the General pointed out, more and more SIC time guys will get picked up.

IMO, there is a serious gamble to get ANY PIC time outside of the 121 environment. If I was sitting at the table, and I have, making those decisions, my experience has shown me that the 121 Captains are well prepared for the move to the majors more so than other backgrounds. As long as there are available 121 Captains with good attitudes that is where I am getting our next pilots. Part 135 single pilot Captains are good at what they do but are not as experienced as the 121 Captains for the 121 major job they are applying to.

Again, we will largely be able to define this next hiring cycle in short time. We are probably looking at the highest qualified group of pilots available in the industries history once this starts going. I think an honest question to ones self is if you were doing the hiring for a major, what qualifications would you choose if all have great attitudes?

Do you think SWA will drop the TPIC requirement given that none of the legacies require it and they'll be hiring quite a bit more?

 

[BentOver]

Do you think SWA will drop the TPIC requirement given that none of the legacies require it and they'll be hiring quite a bit more?

I doubt many Legacies will drop any of their previous minimums. Atleast for a few years (as many here have pointed out).. Just too many very qualified RJ Captains who still want to make the leap.... And then there are the guys doing the Expat flying who may be waiting. And followed by the guys doing the non-UPS/FedEx freight stuff.....

I don't see finding qualified applicants at the Legacies being a problem for a long long time....

 

[808pilot]

Last week I flew with a brand new FO straight off IOE... This was his first 121 job and its in the 330... It helped that his background was a U2 pilot... Holy crap we hired an astronaut! The guy had a kickass attitude and was willing to learn the procedures of an airline... He was just so stoked... That's why he got hired... His new hire class was a cross of every demographic he said...
In my experience and from what and who I have been meeting persistence and attitude is the way to land the job...

 

[Dan Roman]

Last week I flew with a brand new FO straight off IOE... This was his first 121 job and its in the 330... It helped that his background was a U2 pilot... Holy crap we hired an astronaut! The guy had a kickass attitude and was willing to learn the procedures of an airline... He was just so stoked... That's why he got hired... His new hire class was a cross of every demographic he said...
In my experience and from what and who I have been meeting persistence and attitude is the way to land the job...

Good post, it really is all about attitude.....way more important than what someone flew.

 

[BentOver]

Although.....it is pretty awesome to say "I flew the U2"....If there was a high altitude class in initial I think he'd be the one teaching it!

 

[igneousy2]

Does Alaska have a TPIC requirement? I remember hearing about some Horizon FO's going over a couple years ago.

Horizon pilots have seperate minimums from everyone else that I cannot recall off the top of my head that does not require TPIC, but does require a certain amount of "Horizon time". Numerous pilots have been hired under these minimums.

The last time they opened the hiring window I believe they made it possibl to be hired with 0 Turbine-PIC. If my memory serves me right it was...

3000 tt, 1,000 TPIC
or
3000 tt, 750 PIC(121/135), 2,000 TSIC
or
1500 Tactical Fighter PIC (No TT requirement)

I don't know if anyone was hired under the reduceded minimums. I know if you only qualified under the 750 PIC minimums, then your application was scored lower.

 

[igneousy2]

it seems that most were exceptionally well connected.

That's an understatement.

A couple of kids/kids in laws of former System Chief Pilots, lots of kids/kids in laws of senior senior captains (one and two digit seniority numbers/check airman). At least the earlier classes seemed like about 50% of the new hires were these types, and the other 50% were super high scoring applicants. In the last year we have hired at least 2 Chief Pilots from the regional level, and one former manager of a corporate flight department. That being said, so far, in this hiring spurt, I haven't heard of any atrocities in the hiring, as far as the paper minimums go...i.e. no 800TT hour wonders that just happened to be the son of the Director of Whatever.

In this last applicant pool, I had a couple friends that I checked on, all line pilots that exceeded all minimums, all met the cut-off for the "interview pool", but none met the cutoff score to be called for an interview with there only rec the rec of a lowly line-FO.

I'm sure the "standards" will slowly drop, but I do know that there is no way that I would have been hired in this environment.

 

[Kuma]

Last week I flew with a brand new FO straight off IOE... This was his first 121 job and its in the 330... It helped that his background was a U2 pilot... Holy crap we hired an astronaut! The guy had a kickass attitude and was willing to learn the procedures of an airline... He was just so stoked... That's why he got hired... His new hire class was a cross of every demographic he said...
In my experience and from what and who I have been meeting persistence and attitude is the way to land the job...

Thanks 808! I enjoyed your attitude too. Hawaiian Airlines is awesome and I really like the people I work with. I flew back and forth to LAX with Dan Roman over the past couple of days. This company is full of good people; we definitely landed the ultimate job. Great people, great equipment and great routes.

I look forward to flying with you again.

~Kuma

 

[HA25]

Great people, great equipment and great routes.


~Kuma

I second that assessment.


As an asside my best friends dad flew U2's in the 70's and is now a retired UAL pilot... we used to chat aerodynamics a lot, and from what I can see, few people know and understand high-altitude aerodynamics (something very critical to flying widebody long haul in my view) than U2 pilots.. If we all took the time to learn on our own what you had to know day in and day out to stay safe at those altittudes it would go a long way to better one's understanding of aerodynamics and ultimately safe operation. Airlines win when they hire guys wih your background.

 

[OHGOON]

It is pretty obvious that there is no one sure fire route into a legacy. It's all about timing, background, experience, and who you know and when you knew them.

That being said, I think that those who do the hiring (in this case legacy 121 folks who usually have some military background) prefer to hire themselves. It's human nature to gravitate towards people that share your similarities.

The end result is that 121 guys like to hire 121 experience and 135 guys prefer 135 time, because that is what they are most comfortable with.