Spirit to hire directly from ERAU?

[Gearthrower]

I would be more worried if and when they become a Captain. Not ever having the luxury of making mistakes when you are the only one affected. Books can only teach so much; life usually takes care of the rest of the education.

 

[Mr. Irrelevant]

Legacies are hiring people without much PIC. Some don't require any jet PIC. I just had a friend get hired at a Legacy with 1700 total and 0 jet PIC.

Legacy airlines also have these types of programs (internships, internal hires, etc). I know people hired this year at legacy airlines with less than 500 total time.

1700??? Uh, who and where? And what was their connection? or "background"? I know people with less than 1000 PIC TJ time getting interviews once they upgrade to RJ PIC, however they don't get the interview until they've made Captain. First I've heard of an FO getting hired. Unless your friend is female....

Mr. I.

 

[Beetle007]

1700??? Uh, who and where? And what was their connection? or "background"?
Mr. I.

I don't want to say who or where but he was a widebody first officer before he went to the legacy and he did have connections. My only point was that Airlines prefer PIC time but don't require much (if any).

Of course, the only way he made connections was by impressing the right people. No family members or anything.

 

[Taco1]

This is not a big surprise. Airlines around the world have been doing this for years. Many foreigners come here get all their ratings and around 300 hours of flight time, go to airbus training in France and are co-pilots on A-320 all the way up to A-340. You don't hear them crashing everyday!!!

You become the company monkey very early in your career. You learn to fly the way they want you to and you have no bad habits they need to worry about. The captains will have there hands full for a year but after that hopefully they can find the autopilot button and ramp frequency.

 

[MINIME]

deleted

 

[Bighorn]

Mike O. was right on. From the CP's mouth, this is a see-how-it-goes-just-in-case-we-need-it program. He spoke of the possibility of a pilot shortage in a few years; I'm not sure he was convinced of this as he was speaking, though.

Here's my take of it, if it matters. Our DO is a Riddle grad and supposedly sits on some board there. This is a way for him to throw a bone back the ole alma mater's way. If, by some chance, there is a shortage of pilots in the coming years, then he looks really smart and is heralded for spearheading the project. If it doesn't, it goes away and ERAU still gets the "Jeff Carlson Honorary Hall".

This will probably fail one of two ways: the most likely is one of these guys/gals will open their mouth too much and poop will fall out; the other is a situational awareness/possible safety concern will happen somewhere and they'll have to shelve the program.

Hey, these guys are in class as of last Monday. Not many, but some of them are here. The best thing NK pilots can do is educate these guys, not isolate them. The most assured way to make them management-friendly is make them feel threatened by the pilot group. We don't have to like the fact that they are here, but life ain't fair. You want to place blame, place it with the FAA. They're the ones who say these guys are qualified to be a 121 SIC on an Airbus.

gator

Thanks for the info. What I have heard from line drivers is they cut the bases to eliminate hotel costs. Get rid of the parking in DTW and come up with no alternative plan. The Union could care less apparently they have said nothing. Morale is spiraling towards the ground. They cut costs on the backs of their employees and are going to try and ram pref bid down the throats of the pilots. But yet they will spend money on giving some 300 hour wonder an extra 30 hours of OE that you wouldn't have to give anyone else in theory. Extra Sim time etc.... Things are getting worse.

 

[The_Russian]

Now that you don't "work" at Gulfstream anymore I suppose this isn't hypocrisy.

No, not at all. There are clear differences between Spirit and Gulfstream as an operation if you take in account weather changes, terrain, airspace, and aircraft complexity. My chief concern for Spirit pilots would be a flood of crew who have no industry experience resulting in a reduced ability to negotiate with management. Safety is always a concern, but experience comes with frequency, and in time.

At GIA I always treated the 250 guys with the respect they deserved, provided they had the right attitude towards their work.

 

[Gearthrower]

First, this has been done for years at other larger airlines that have their own simulators and large training budgets and who also value and invest in training their employees. I do not see that here at Spirit, they are going to give what 3 maybe 5 more sim's and 50 hrs of OE and this will some how magically make-up for the lack of experience; I wish I had more faith in the process, all you have to look at is how they train those that have 4000 to 8000 hrs. Never once have we trained in the use of HF. No increase in our yearly recurrent training to included Intl. Op's, just the same Evelyn Wood Power Point Presentation on Systems and Op Spec's. Most Major Airlines have separate courses on Intl. Op's that you must take to qual for specific regions, I.E. South America, Pacific and North Atlantic operations. Now, most would argue we are not a Major, and I would say you are correct that is why these individuals will have to work ten times as hard to achieve Mediocrity which is a damn shame. So it begs the question why not just pay the extra money to attract those high time pilots who are still out there with pay and benefits and stop trying to reinvent the wheel by hiring young pilots who will do anything short of murder to fly a big airplane. I will treat them with respect help them just as I would any other new hire pilot. But Spirit will never gives these young pilots the training they require to prepare them for this job. Also, where do you think their allegiances will be with the Union or the Company, my guess is the company. After three airlines I know who has my back when the chips are down and its not the company. This program will fail because we do not have the infrustructure to make it work. We can put this in the hall of shame in the new Jeff Carlson Memorial Crewroom in DTW.

 

[MINIME]

This is not good for anyone! Looks like the company is trying to position itself in a situation where if you ask for too much, they can easily show you the door. Why would they need to put up with greedy pilots, if they have an endless supply of wide eyed, deep pocket kids, who would do it for less or even for free!

These kids are going to be marginal when it comes to actually operating in the system. But far worse, they are not going to have a clue as to how a pilot should defend his profession, nor will they care! They will feel for ever grateful to the company for giving them the chance to fly a big shiny jet right out of college. You can count on those individuals voting along company lines every single time! I guarantee it! And the company's stance will be," if you don't like it, don't let the door hit you on the way out." The supply and demand equation is going to be severely tilted against pilots once again. Just like you saw afer 911.

Your union should be on this issue like mud on a pig. They should fight this all the way. It will hurt your pilot group and eventually the industry!

I believe Airtran was looking into something similar. But I believe their union stepped up to the plate and helped it go away. Some Citrus guys could perhaps elaborate on the issue.

 

[joeyfly55]

4000+ hrs with 500 Jet PIC and no call, sad!

 

[fam62c]

My question is this: how hard did the Spirit pilot group fight this? Did they go public with a statement saying that the company is making a conscious choice to hire less experienced pilots over much more experienced ones? The same thing is going on at JetBlue and I would ask them the same question. The public should know that this is happening. They may not care but they should know. The regional carriers and foreign carriers do this but not because they want to....they have to do it to get pilots. I find it hard to believe that there is or will ever be an environment where Spirit or JetBlue can't hire pilots with previous airline experience. Don't get me wrong, there are sharp people who can learn the job with low experience. I also agree that there are certain people with a lot of hours and experience who would make bad employees, however, with all things being equal why on earth would you take the least experienced pilots? I have to say that I think a little less of both Spirit and JetBlue because of this.

 

[troll565]

All I know is that we're growing and every single other airline is cutting back and selling planes.

Who cares? Life is too short.

 

[Gearthrower]

So we should all just stop trying to make it a better place to work because it could suck more if we where at another airline. Take a look at Flying the Line II read the chapter that covers Lorenzo and all the fun and games he played with his pilots and other employee groups. This is just the time when you have to be on the greatest lookout for things such as this that really do not make sense. Come on, we need to hire Riddle grad's because there are no more qualified pilot's, what a joke.

 

[MINIME]

All I know is that we're growing and every single other airline is cutting back and selling planes.

Who cares? Life is too short.

Who cares? I'll bet that one day you will. When you're forced to accept crappier work rules and even lower wages. Not possible you think? If I have a stack of resumes that reach the ceiling and are all willing to work for peanuts, where does that leave you? It leaves you with no negotiating capital, thus management not having to give you anything. If you can't see this coming, then perhaps a little reading into Flying the Line might be a good idea.

Know this, some of these kids are willing to work for free just for the chance to show their my-space buddies that they fly a big jet. Doesn't make them bad human beings per say, just naive. They can be book smart everyday of the week and twice on Sundays, but 99% of them lack the experience as to how pilots maintain a liveable wage in this industry. And at the Major level, this is simply unacceptable. It affects too many people's lives who've worked hard to get to this level. Yourself included I presume.

Managements around this country will be high fiving one another if this is left unchallenged. There are plenty of well qualified candidates waiting their turn. This is not a need, it's a strategic undercutting move by this or these companies.

 

[Superpilot92]

All I know is that we're growing and every single other airline is cutting back and selling planes.

Who cares? Life is too short.

I hope you joking?

 

[Bighorn]

We dont have a union at Spirit. We will when the new regime takes over. I think its in 2 months. The current one has no opinion and doesn't care.

 

[Gearthrower]

New Regime in 27 days and 3 hrs but who's counting!

 

[Beetle007]

How long before LGA, ACY and SJU will elect their capt and fo reps? Anyone know the ALPA timeline once a base is opened?

 

[enigma]

BIGHORN says "
We dont have a union at Spirit. We will when the new regime takes over. I think its in 2 months. The current one has no opinion and doesn't care."

I ask, when was the last time you attended an LC meeting? .....offered an LC resolution?.....volunteered to help your fellow pilots?.....

Yes the Spirit Pilots have a Union, unfortunately most choose not to participate. And don't give me the reasoning that the 109 reps don't work with people they don't like. The MEC Chair (me for those who haven't figured it out) has only turned down one volunteer and he happened to be a DTW pilot who couldn't gain the support of his own LEC.

If the Spirit pilots expect our new reps to be effective, we'd better be willing to give them our full support. If we expect that we can all continue asking "ALPA" to fix something while we individually do what is best for ourselves, we're going to be in for huge disappointment.

 

[Chuck Steak]

Its funny to see when you get some hot shot riddle guy who ends up at mesa!! you guys spend that much $ to get "the best education" out there and then many of you end up at mesa???? I guess they don't teach common sense there!