I'm not sure if this belongs here in floodgates or pilot shortage thread...
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Hiring floodgates opening in 3....2.....1.....
- Thread starter EODDave
- Start date
Good luck with that
I'm curious how they plan to achieve that. Seems like they'll need to grow a bunch of new pilots from the ground up to meet their target.
That program is literally what is being advertised there.
For those in the know, what would your advice be?
I am a 1250-ish TT helo guy with about 110-ish hours of FW time between primary and civilian time. I am about 12 months out from EAS and just started my ME syllabus at a local flight school and am planning to use SkillBridge for the last few months before EAS to build FW time.
Based on the PSA website, once I get the 25 hours of ME time I am good to drop an app with an early 2022 availability date with anticipated terminal leave.
Would you pay out of pocket for ATP-CTP or do you all think regional hiring will pick up enough by next spring that I shouldn’t worry about it?
I am a 1250-ish TT helo guy with about 110-ish hours of FW time between primary and civilian time. I am about 12 months out from EAS and just started my ME syllabus at a local flight school and am planning to use SkillBridge for the last few months before EAS to build FW time.
Based on the PSA website, once I get the 25 hours of ME time I am good to drop an app with an early 2022 availability date with anticipated terminal leave.
Would you pay out of pocket for ATP-CTP or do you all think regional hiring will pick up enough by next spring that I shouldn’t worry about it?
I'd say hold your breath on that question for about 3-6 months and watch what regional pilot hiring tends to do. I think the answer will be obvious by then but as of today I'd say it's hard to say either way.
Good deal, thank you.
I figured that was going to be the answer. Too soon on the upswing. One might say I am ready to be on to the next gig...
Yeah, you can see the hiring announcements from one week to the next right now. Obviously they're all going to adjust their requirements over the next several weeks. Pilots are a commodity (never forget that...) and just like oil they come in a few different flavors that are easier or harder to refine. Right now the industry is at the point that summer bookings are looking up, and down the road from that the people in HQ are figuring out projections compared to how quickly they can get the schoolhouse spooled up. The regionals are also looking at their own pilot attrition projections. A steady trickle of regional pilots have been hired away to fly cargo during this past year and I guarantee you they're analyzing that as well as mainline hiring poaching from the regionals. It's the circle of life.
For now, hang on to your GI Bill. Save it for ten years from now when you get furloughed the next time the industry takes a nose dive, that way you'll have another financial option in your back pocket when you can go to school for something and get BAH while you're doing that instead of spending your nest egg to pay your bills. Or maybe you can get a job as an Amazon manager like a lot of workaholic personality airline pilots have done this past year... or get a traditional 9-5 job at Home Depot or something (that's a thing too), or let your kids use your GI Bill, or...
Back to the present, unless there is a way for one of the different mil programs that financially reimburse you for schooling/job training/skills that you can use for the ground requirements for your ATP and it doesn't come with strings attached, then I wouldn't plan on using mil financial assistance (months of my GI Bill eligibility or anything else) towards the ATP-CTP course. Or at least it wouldn't be my first choice, not in the current environment.
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Edit: scrolled further up the thread, sorry aboot that. There are definitely skillbridges worth looking at, even if they won't pay off right away. I know FedEx has one; there are a couple others floating around out there.
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The crystal ball isn’t clear on this issue for sure. Widespread hiring by the majors should be in full swing by mid 2022, clearing out the 2-3k qualified airline pilots who were left scrambling for a job during COVIDgeddon. My guess is that regionals will prioritize people that already have ATP-CTP and written complete until the current pilot surplus becomes a shortage again and they have to spend money to be competitive in hiring qualified candidates.
Want the smoothest transition? Get the ATP-CTP on your own 6 months out via the Delta connected program if the regionals aren’t offering it widely by then.
United must still have a memory of their 1980's experience. In the mid to late 80's IIRC United went under a court order to diversify their pilot ranks. More racial minorities and women, by order. I had a buddy, Mk 1 Mod 0 white dude, get an offer from United and within a couple weeks had it suspended and he went into a hiring pool because United had to fill classes with the court approved variety. The candidates picked up included folks with just over commercial pilot mins to the highly qualified. While my white buddy sat on the bench a mutual friend at the same airline jumped into a class at United, a highly qualified woman. My bud waited it out and saw hundreds of numbers go by. As is usually the case with mandated minority set asides, it has the effect of labeling all as less desirable or not best qualified. Junior black and female pilots of that era at UAL could not walk trough the terminal without someone wondering what their log book looked like and how well they performed.
They were calling United “Yo”nited back then.
Oh yeah. Forgot that.