AD, I find this interesting if a little curious. I can understand your point about experience, and I can also accept that some training establishments have better reputations than others. The common denominator here though is safety; is there any statistics available in the public domain that would allow you and us to compare the number of incidents and/or accidents on mainline UA v's UAX, or with any other airlines? Is there any other basis to your concerns other than age/experience?
Also, in relation to safety does it concern you that some pilots are overweight, perhaps even obese? Especially, if they are closer to retiring than graduation? In transit in the USA it has always struck me that a noticeable proportion of the pilots I see coming and going are overweight, moreso than in other countries where the majority appear to be of normal weight. I always assumed that the medicals you guys had to undergo are very strict and that the pilot would have a problem passing them if he or she was overweight?
I really don't worry about the obesity of some pilots other than they look bad in uniform. Some old geezer passes away from being obese, I move up a number in seniority Seriously, a Class I physical isn't going to get a pilot into shape if he doesn't want to. It checks your eyesight, hearing, heart, and a urinalysis. It doesn't care if you are a size 45 waist.
As for statistics, all you have to do is look in the recent news and see how Congress is finally investigating the training and hiring of regional carriers. The Buffalo crash had a captain that had failed 5 previous checkrides, and a first officer who had never seen icing before??
Here are just a couple of my regional jet stories:
A) Sitting in ops in Detroit and there is a Express BE1900 sitting on the ramp. It is so out of CG that the plane is about to flop back on its tail. They are closing the door to taxi out. I go over to the supervisor and ask him to tell the pilots to recheck their weights. They come back over the radio that all is well, but I point out to the supervisor the plane is about to fall on its butt. He notices it too and tells the pilots to recheck their numbers. Ends up they were way out of balance and they essentially unloaded most of the luggage from the aft pit and left it there in DTW. That plane was almost falling over when the FO was doing his walkaround.
B) Flying another regional flight as a passenger, and I notice a very high deck angle, and reduced sound, very high deck angle. As I get up to talk to the FA, the nose drops, the engines rev up, and the jet starts to recover. The captain comes on saying they had some turbulence. As I was getting off, I said "nice stall recovery, how did you get into that?" and his face went red with embrassment. He said they had accidentally left the power back at cruise level off.
C) Flying another regional jet, delayed due to a wing leak indication in the cockpit. Captain assures me it is just an indicator and he is going to get it deferred. We sit for 30 min and get it deferred, with no maintenance person ever coming to see the jet. As we back out and he starts engine #2, I see steam coming out of the leading edge of the right wing. The Captain comes on again, saying they are talking to maintenance about a faulty bleed air fault again. I go to the FA and tell her to tell him that it is indeed a bleed air leak on the right wing, and they need to go back into the chocks and have maintenance look at it. We did and jet was grounded.
Now, I'm not saying all regional pilots are bad, just many are inexperienced. As a military instructor pilot, my saying was always I can teach you the jet, I can't teach you experience. That comes with you not killing yourself, and learning from your mistakes and hopefully mistakes others make. I just prefer to not be on planes where a lot of the pilots are learning and making their first mistakes. Just my personal preference.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LarryJ
As you know, United was once famous for hiring low-time pilots. In the 1960s UAL recruited pilots who didn't even have a commercial pilot certificate yet.
The average flight time for a regional new-hire today is probably in the 5000 hours. There are so few jobs, and so many unemployed high-time pilots, that the few regionals that are hiring have a lot of experience from which to choose.
And how many crashes did United and others have in the old days versus today? United hired young, less experienced pilots back in the old days due to there not being many experience pilots, and had many more crashes than today as well. We now have first officers at United that have 20 to 30 years of flying and decades of flying experience. When the CAL captain died inflight, there was not even an emergency as both FO's took over and completed the flight safely. Now, your regional captain kicks the bucket and you have a 300 hour FO onboard diverting on his first medical emergency single pilot into a strange field seeing his first snowfall ever. Still saying they are same in safety?
You are probably correct that there is a more skilled pilot group out there for hire NOW, but not many regional carriers are hiring right now are they? I doubt most pilots being furloughed from a major carrier are running to a regional carrier. Very few pilots who have reached a major carrier in their late 30's, early 40's timeframe can afford to go back and work at a regional for $18K/yr. I know I can't. There are definitely more senior pilots now in the left seat since they are staying at their carrier longer as there has been no hiring at the majors.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cholula
Can any of the pilots share their thoughts on the pros and cons of being a passenger jet pilot versus a freighter pilot like UPS, FedEx, etc.
Are the jobs relatively similar in pay, bennies, expertise needed, etc?
Thanks.
I would LOVE to be a UPS or FED EX pilot. They make 40% more than us in pay, and they don't deal with all the issues passenger pilots put up with. There are no medical diversions, FA vs Pax confrontations, no complaining due to delays or a mechanical, no worrying about injuries from turbulence, etc.. The tough part is all the back side of the clock flying they do until they are senior enough to hold day flights. I do all-nighters sometimes and they are tough on me, so I don't envy that part of the job.
__________________
These views are my own and do not represent the views of United Airlines or the ALPA.
Last edited by aluminumdriver; Jul 1, 09 at 10:16 am.
Programs: UA 1K (3K), Hilton Diamond, National EAEE
Posts: 1,283
So if you are commuting and you can't get a seat anywhere what happens? I assume its all your responsibility to "get to work" and if you don't show up you are in deep doo-doo? Is there always a way to get where you need to go somehow or do you have to plan way ahead if you are junior?
Like the FO on the Buffalo crash... she took the FedEx overnight from SEA to EWR (via Memphis of course) but timed it so she didnt have to pay for a place to crash (and showed up at work sick and tired). Are the cargo carriers pretty much the backup (or the routine method for the juniors)?
So if you are commuting and you can't get a seat anywhere what happens? I assume its all your responsibility to "get to work" and if you don't show up you are in deep doo-doo? Is there always a way to get where you need to go somehow or do you have to plan way ahead if you are junior?
Like the FO on the Buffalo crash... she took the FedEx overnight from SEA to EWR (via Memphis of course) but timed it so she didnt have to pay for a place to crash (and showed up at work sick and tired). Are the cargo carriers pretty much the backup (or the routine method for the juniors)?
Each airline will have a commuter policy. At United, pilots have to have a primary flight and a back up flight that will get them to their domicile in time for their trip. If they have those two flights and can't make it, no punishment is put on them, but they lose the money for the trip they missed. If a pilot misses a bunch of trips due to his commute, he may get talked to by the chief pilot about his commute issues.
I never fly the cargo guys on a commute since they are usually a much longer time and hassle. You end up flying them to a sort facility in Memphis or Louisville, then sitting for hours, then flying on to your destination. I usually fly up the day of on a commercial carrier, or the night before if not enough time for two attempts.
It is up to the professionalism of each pilot to show up rested and ready for his flight.
AD
__________________
These views are my own and do not represent the views of United Airlines or the ALPA.
If it's nothing but luck, then why are training experience considered factors?
As far as management pilots go, many might have prior experience, but flying 2 or 3 days a month is not maintaining a significant amount of recent experience. I'm highly experienced as an automotive mechanic, but last time I did a brake job was 27 years ago. Would you like me to fix your brakes for you? I could do it, but wouldn't you want someone with some currency?
Of course, but I'd also like an FO who is willing to tell his captain that he is trying to kill everyone on the plane. It takes two to tango and they were both "experienced" pilots.
Quote:
Originally Posted by freshairborne
As for making mistakes being non-descriminatory, I beg to differ. I'll take a well-trained and experienced professional over a newbie any day of the week. Who do you want taking care of that heart valve thing, the Scrubs kid, or the doc who did 12 of then last week?
Show me a pilot who says they never make mistakes and I'll show you a pilot who will eventually kill someone. The point is everyone makes mistakes; it is non-discriminatory.
Of course experience matters, but its not everything and it doesn't automatically make a good pilot. Every airline pilot out there has flown with plenty examples of pilots who are "just good enough" but have a ton of time in type and somehow made it to captain. Not many, but they are out there, even at the majors.
As for the comparison with doctors, it doesn't stand up. I'd be very surprised if the majority of mistakes weren't committed by more experienced doctors under less supervision than the "newbies".
Also, since you brought it up, what does "well-trained and experienced professional" mean? At what point does a pilot reach that point?
I really hope your answer isn't what everyone is alluding to, the time they make it by an interview board and can call themselves a major airline pilot, because, right now there are plenty of regional captains who could easy meet that standard and many who already have.
Checko
__________________
Please note: Opinions expressed here are my own and not that of my employer or any other organization. Thank You!
Last edited by GreatChecko; Jun 29, 09 at 11:39 pm.
<<Also, since you brought it up, what does "well-trained and experienced professional" mean? At what point does a pilot reach that point? >>
I would say as a minimum, having an Air Transport License is a good start. To even get an interview with a major carrier for a FO position you needed an ATP and several thousand hours of experience. Would you say the minimum time FO's the regionals have been hiring are at that minimum safe experience level? Many times not. With the pilot slow down, maybe they have hired more experienced FO's, but not in the past. Most regional carriers haven't even been hiring during the downturn have they?
AD
__________________
These views are my own and do not represent the views of United Airlines or the ALPA.
Last edited by aluminumdriver; Jul 1, 09 at 9:48 am.
I would say as a minimum, having an Air Transport License is a good start. To even get an interview with a major carrier for a FO position you needed an ATP and several thousand hours of experience. Would you say the minimum time FO's the regionals have been hiring are at that minimum safe experience level? I personally don't. It's all about the airlines going for the cheapest paid pilot they can find, experience not an issue.
So the problem is with the FO's? Judging how much everyone seems to put down and avoid regionals, it has to be more than that because every regional airline captain is required to have an ATP and a type rating.
Obviously, this is a very tough question to really answer. However, I love it, because pinning down the magic number is so tough to do especially when all regional airline pilots are painted as being flawed and major airline pilots as the complete opposite and often the amount of flight time some of the pilots have on both sides is the same. The only difference is luck and getting through an interview in some instances.
Obviously, there are some structural and cultural differences that factor into regionals versus majors, but its not as cut and dry as some people want to make it out to be, and that's the crux of what I'm getting at.
As for where I work, the minimum time we ever hired at was in the 800 hour range (yes, I agree that's too low). Right now, we aren't hiring FO's with less than about 2500 hours and previous turbine/121 experience.
Checko
__________________
Please note: Opinions expressed here are my own and not that of my employer or any other organization. Thank You!
Last edited by GreatChecko; Jun 29, 09 at 11:46 pm.
a first officer who had never seen icing before?? Never seen icing, and she is flying a multi-million dollar aircraft with 70 lives onboard? I find that ridiculous, and dangerous.
It's also inaccurate. If you'll read the transcript again you'll see that she was talking about her thought on the topic when she was a new-hire at the airline. She had since spent over a year flying the line in the Northeast which would have included a significant amount of experience in icing.
A civil pilot hired by their first airline is likely to have never flown an airplane with known icing certification. Where do you expect them to get icing experience if not as an F/O at their first airline?
Quote:
And how many crashes did United and others have in the old days versus today?
I can't think of any that were blamed on inexperienced F/O's. I can think of some, however, that were blamed on very experienced Captains who weren't interested in listening to what their crews had to say.
<<Also, since you brought it up, what does "well-trained and experienced professional" mean? At what point does a pilot reach that point? >>
I would say as a minimum, having an Air Transport License is a good start. To even get an interview with a major carrier for a FO position you needed an ATP and several thousand hours of experience. Would you say the minimum time FO's the regionals have been hiring are at that minimum safe experience level? I personally don't. It's all about the airlines going for the cheapest paid pilot they can find, experience not an issue.
AD
Very interesting discussion. Even an ATP, though, isn't much of a guarantee of relevant experience.
Here's a hypothetical. Pilot #1 has an ATP, 2000 hours, 1000 turbine, but has flown in Southern California and the Southwest and has little experience in actual IMC and cold weather operations. Pilot #2 has 800 hours, a CPL with instrument, but no turbine time. #2, though, did their flying in the Midwest and has a ton of experience dodging CBs and flying in actual IMC and winter weather. Which pilot has more "experience"? It's not always so cut and dried; there's an awfully good argument in favor of Pilot #2, despite the fewer total hours and lack of an ATP.
As for your RJ stories:
As always, I appreciate the thread and your and your colleagues contributions.
So the problem is with the FO's? Judging how much everyone seems to put down and avoid regionals, it has to be more than that because every regional airline captain is required to have an ATP and a type rating.
Obviously, this is a very tough question to really answer. However, I love it, because pinning down the magic number is so tough to do especially when all regional airline pilots are painted as being flawed and major airline pilots as the complete opposite and often the amount of flight time some of the pilots have on both sides is the same. The only difference is luck and getting through an interview in some instances.
Obviously, there are some structural and cultural differences that factor into regionals versus majors, but its not as cut and dry as some people want to make it out to be, and that's the crux of what I'm getting at.
As for where I work, the minimum time we ever hired at was in the 800 hour range (yes, I agree that's too low). Right now, we aren't hiring FO's with less than about 2500 hours and previous turbine/121 experience.
Checko
That's good to hear about your airline. But I know for a fact that Mesa was hiring anyone walking off the street about a year ago when they had the more experienced pilots walking away from the job. Go Jets and Shuttle America were both formed to get around other more experienced regional carrier pilots (read more expensive) and thus hired many junior pilots.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LarryJ
It's also inaccurate. If you'll read the transcript again you'll see that she was talking about her thought on the topic when she was a new-hire at the airline. She had since spent over a year flying the line in the Northeast which would have included a significant amount of experience in icing.
A civil pilot hired by their first airline is likely to have never flown an airplane with known icing certification. Where do you expect them to get icing experience if not as an F/O at their first airline?.
Especially when they are coming off being an instructor in a C-172 or coming right out of a training academy with all their ratings and zero experience. You can't tell me that if there hadn't been a more experienced FO on that flight, that they might have intervened when the Captain was putting the plane into a stall instead of recovering from it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by LarryJ
I can't think of any that were blamed on inexperienced F/O's. I can think of some, however, that were blamed on very experienced Captains who weren't interested in listening to what their crews had to say.
Never said that. The point was that United hired some very young pilots with limited experience in the 60's. My point was that there were a lot more pilot induced accidents and incidents back in those times as well, which again correlates to experience. United has only hired very experienced pilots for past several decades and hasn't had a pilot induced crash in over 30 years. I do find a correlation to that experience level and training. Not saying accidents won't happen, typing in the wrong fix into a FMS and crashing into a mountain like AMR did happened, but it had nothing to do with experience level. Not knowing how to recover from a stall in weather does have something to do with experience level IMO.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreatChecko
I agree, however, they really just pissed me off. There is no room for that level of unprofessionalism in this industry.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not slamming every regional pilot, not in the least, and I'm not going to make this a pilot debate forum on regional vs major pilots. There are many good competent pilots there. I'm slamming the airlines and their regional partners for trying to put the cheapest cost product out there, pilot experience be damed, and I've had too many instances as listed above that make me uneasy. United continually whipsaws regional partners against each other for the flying, driving wages and experience even lower. If a regional airline wants to keep flying, they have to drive costs down even more, which makes it even harder to attract good experienced pilots, and you end up hiring many new, young, low time pilots looking for that first airline job. You also end up with poor work rules, resulting in overworked tired pilots flying 5 legs a day, after having 9 hours block to block rest. You could have two great pilots, but after a 12 hour day, 9 hour rest, and back for 4 more legs, they are prime for a mistake. All of those issues have to do with my uneasiness flying a regional carrier.
Ultimately, it's my life and I won't risk it on a flight I don't feel is adequately manned for that flight's destination and weather conditions, or on an airline that flies their crews to exhaustion or pressures them to fly bad equipment. I'd recommend that to anyone flying, say hi to the flight crew of your flight and make sure you feel comfortable with them, major airline or regional carrier, domestic or international.
Cheers.
__________________
These views are my own and do not represent the views of United Airlines or the ALPA.
Last edited by aluminumdriver; Jul 1, 09 at 10:19 am.
Reason: edited to remove make post more generic.
That's good to hear about your airline. But I know for a fact that Mesa was hiring anyone walking off the street about a year ago when they had the more experienced pilots walking away from the job. Go Jets and Shuttle America were both formed to get around other more experienced regional carrier pilots (read more expensive) and thus hired many junior pilots.
That was actually very common across the industry until new jobs dried up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aluminumdriver
Don't get me wrong, I'm not slamming every regional pilot, not in the least, and I'm not going to make this a pilot debate forum on regional vs major pilots. There are many good competent pilots there. I'm slamming the airlines and their regional partners for trying to put the cheapest cost product out there, pilot experience be damed, and I've had too many instances as listed above that make me uneasy. United continually whipsaws regional partners against each other for the flying, driving wages and experience even lower. If a regional airline wants to keep flying, they have to drive costs down even more, which makes it even harder to attract good experienced pilots, and you end up hiring many new, young, low time pilots looking for that first airline job. You also end up with poor work rules, resulting in overworked tired pilots flying 5 legs a day, after having 9 hours block to block rest. You could have two great pilots, but after a 12 hour day, 9 hour rest, and back for 4 more legs, they are prime for a mistake. All of those issues have to do with my uneasiness flying a regional carrier.
When I see two pilots takeoff on a closed runway, not noticing the runway lights aren't on, and that their HSI headings weren't even matched up with the runway heading and crash on takeoff (that is the first thing I ever taught my student pilots prior to an IMC takeoff), it concerns me. When I see two pilots spin a jet into the ground because they decide to do some flight testing of their own in the jet during a ferry flight, it concerns me. When a captain willfully ignores a Bleed Air Warning Light assuming it is a faulty light when there is steam coming out of the wing, it concerns me. What caused those? Youthful exuberance? Being very tired and not noticing a closed runway? Being fearful of canceling a flight for maintenace and pushing through? I don't know, but they all combine to make me uneasy.
Now, with 3 decades of flying behind me, you can't get me to take a bad jet in the air, do inflight testing for maintenance, take a jet into a thunderstorm on landing, because I know better. We used to joke that if you could make it to a senior captain in the military, you had a pretty good chance of making it through your flying career unscathed since you made it through the indestructable pilot phase of your career. That was actually a very wise saying.
Ultimately, it's my life and I won't risk it on a flight I don't feel is adequately manned for that flight's destination and weather conditions, or on an airline that flies their crews to exhaustion or pressures them to fly bad equipment. I'd recommend that to anyone flying, say hi to the flight crew of your flight and make sure you feel comfortable with them, major airline or regional carrier, it doesn't matter. Ask if anything is wrong with the aircraft today. Ask questions. You're strapped in at the mercy of your flight crew. You do have some control, before you press PURCHASE on the computer, you see the equipment and airline actually flying you that day.
Cheers.
I completely agree with you.
I'd welcome passenger questions, but then again, I do post on FT so I'm probably more passenger oriented than most.
My only caution to those who want more information from the flight crew is to make sure they approach it carefully and confidently. If a passenger sounds scared, I'm not going to tell them about the multiple MEL's we are carrying because the spare bulbs didn't arrive on time and the coffee maker is acting up, because they have no bearing on safety. Also, many airlines (not mine, yet) don't want pilots talking about such things, so don't be surprised if you get stonewalled.
If you really want to do this, what I'd do is to try and strike up a conversation about a completely unrelated topic while the crew is waiting for the aircraft and slide in your questions, you'll probably have more luck.
Checko
__________________
Please note: Opinions expressed here are my own and not that of my employer or any other organization. Thank You!
Last edited by GreatChecko; Jul 1, 09 at 11:38 am.
From a passenger perspective, one of the things I appreciate about UA mainline is that you can walk up to the cockpit and say hello during boarding - and there isn't a problem with the FAs or crew (I do wait for an opening) -- although obviously as it is with human nature, there are those more welcoming than others.
That availability or openness is just not there on other mainline carriers and rarely on the UAX flights. I've been stopped by mainline FAs for indicating that I'd like to say hello to the crew. On UAX, there just isn't room to stop and chat without blocking traffic. There, I may not talk to them but I do look and observe who's up there. I may be a little more aware during the flight with a crew that looked like they just graduated high school (if that) not that I'm capable of doing anything should something bad happen, mind you, but I don't want to be oblivious in those cases either.
Programs: UA 1K (.925MM), HHonors Gold, Priority Club Gold
Posts: 1,830
Quote:
Originally Posted by aluminumdriver
You do have some control, before you press PURCHASE on the computer, you see the equipment and airline actually flying you that day.
Cheers.
Not necessarily always true. I will be flying this Friday from SJC-DEN-TUL. When I booked it, it was mainline all the way. It has since been changed to RJ from DEN-TUL. There are still 2 mainline flights but I don't make it to DEN in time for the first one and the second mainline flight would get me in way too late. So in this case I thought I was mainline all the way and it was changed in such a way that it is not feasible to change to one of the mainline planes.
That's good to hear about your airline. But I know for a fact that Mesa was hiring anyone walking off the street about a year ago
Now they've furloughed those guys who were hired about a year ago leaving the most junior F/Os with a couple of years of regional experience. Most regionals haven't hired in a year, or so, and those that have hired have had a lot of experience from which to choose. I know several recent regional new-hires who have had 10,000 hours, or more.
Quote:
Especially when they are coming off being an instructor in a C-172 or coming right out of a training academy with all their ratings and zero experience.
From where do you expect them to get this experience?
Quote:
I'm slamming the airlines and their regional partners for trying to put the cheapest cost product out there, pilot experience be damed
The airlines always try to hire the most experienced pilots that are available to them at any particular time. Sometimes that's 10,000+ hour furloughed pilots, sometimes that 500 hour CFIs--just like UAL in the 1960s. Everything goes in cycles. A year and a half ago there was a shortage of qualified pilots, now there is a surplus.
Quote:
When I see two Comair pilots takeoff on a closed runway, not noticing the runway lights aren't on, and that their HSI headings weren't even matched up with the runway heading and crash on takeoff, it concerns me.
But those were well experienced pilots, not newbies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jhayes_1780
You guys mention jumpseating on UX..... do all regional airplanes have jumpseats?
Anything with more than 19 passenger seats is required to have a cockpit jumpseat.
Seriously, a Class I physical isn't going to get a pilot into shape if he doesn't want to. It checks your eyesight, hearing, heart, and a urinalysis. It doesn't care if you are a size 45 waist. 
