US Regional Headhunting
 

FYI: Recent efforts

I guess these regionals are wholly owned by AA ?* I can keep 'em straight anymore:

Piedmont: Cadets

PSA: PSA Airlines | PSA Airlines Launches Industry-Leading Cadet Program | January 21, 2016

Envoy: Cadet Program takes pilots from classroom to cockpit : EnvoyAir

That's correct, all three are wholly owned by American. Why do they need three wholly owned? So they can whipsaw them around.

Also, Endeavor is wholly owned by Delta. Horizon is wholly owned by Alaska. United just bought a share in Commutair.

A couple other regionals now have recruiting or cadet programs such as Skywest Airlines and Trans States.

Zonda,

Is this type of program regarded favorably by rank and file ?

Pilots at my company don't seem bothered. Generally speaking, they view it as a gimmick to get more new hires.

Zonda,

"...they view it as a gimmick to get more new hires."

Sounds like some kinda gimmick is necessary from what I'm hearing.

Can they go "Class room to Cockpit" in the US? What are the hour requirements for Regionals to put these guys in the RHS?

Guessing all those schools in the program can issue restricted ATPs so they'll need 1000 hours.

@bafanguy, it just depends on the regional. There are regionals filling classes (Skywest hiring 100+ a month) and some not able to fill classes (GoJets 15 a month and now accepting direct entry captain).

@Wizofoz, all the regionals are taking guys with ATP minimums, and most are taking guys with restricted ATP mins (750TT for military, 1000TT/1250TT for certain University programs, 1500TT everybody else).

So, even if they go through these schemes, they need to get 1000hrs. What do they usually do to fill the gap?

Yes they still need 1000 hours and these schemes are done in conjunction with universities and flying schools.

To be eligible for these programs, you typically have to become a flight instructor at the school that has a partnership with the airline and you instruct until you reach 1000/1250/1500 hours. In some cases, the airline pays the salary of the instructor.

Great,
So we perpetuate the system where the least experienced pilots are the teachers of the next generation.

^^^ US military has done that for years.

@wizofoz: flight instructing is always going to be like that unless flight instructor salaries miraculously match those of airline captains. Not gonna happen.

Fortunately, the flight school where I worked had some highly experienced career flight instructors (one guy had 25,000 hours of dual given).

A little headhunting update from the colonies:

Pilots With Part 121 Experience : EnvoyAir

Envoy rewards pilots with Part 121 experience : EnvoyAir

There is movement from one regional to another. For example, about 9% of attrition at Expressjet (the only regional for which I have data) in both 2014 (69) and 2015 (92) went to other regionals with Compass getting about a third of those numbers.

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away... This was not looked upon kindly. Pilot management wanted to select the best candidates wherever they could find them. They didn't necessarily want a company training school, even if it was an airline, to be the source of pilot talent. When the US Airline industry was in a tailspin in the early 2000's, Pilot labor union's granted "scope" concessions during bad times. These scope concessions allowed the regional airlines to fly jets.

Now that the industry is profitable there is nothing left to trade and the major pilot union/s are not willing to make any more concessions on scope or other contractual areas. Therefore the company's are free to try to make arrangements to deal with the pilot shortage in a manner they see fit.

Unions and pilot management are really now relegated to the back seat in airline hiring. At my company, one of the big three, and at the others, or so I hear, hiring is primarily done by Human Resources,(HR). Pilot management doesn't see a candidate until he has been blessed by HR. When I was hired, way back when, the pilot selection board was mostly independent of HR and they made the selection and then sent the candidate to HR for review. If HR found disqualifying issues, convictions, falsified records, etc, the could reject the candidate. Now it is the other way around and I think that many good pilot candidates don't get through the interview process because of some issue unrelated to piloting.

If your company is hiring future captains you are looking for leaders and those who can make decisions. You want someone who will embrace and adhere to the important elements of CRM. You also want a team player who gets along well with other work groups. However you want a captain who will act as the Pilot In Command and will "step on toes" if absolutely necessary. I think HR wants someone who will never raise his voice and sit around the campfire and sing "kumbaya" and drink the company cool-aide in massive quantities.

Pilots no longer hire pilots at the US major carriers. At least not at my company.

That is just my opinion. Here endith the ranting.

Does anyone know if any of these airlines would sponsor an individual. I am assuming you need the right to work and live in the US with a green card?

They are not doing it now but my guess, considering the recent Republic Chapter 11 filing, that they might attempt to end run the process by attempting to gain H1B visas for pilot candidates. The US H1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialized fields such as in architecture, engineering, mathematics, science, and medicine. [https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q...s+an+hb1+visa]

I have no knowledge that this is happening or about to happen. However HIB visa's are designed to allow company's to hire candidates that have special skills that are not available in the US. I don't know anything about the details of that type of visa.

This might be one way that the US Pilot profession is opened up to the world. It has not happened yet.

ZB,

Speaking of Republic, visas and pilot supply, they tried to get Brazilians in here when they were hurting for pilots...didn't work. Good entertainment value to it though. This from a WSJ article:


"Republic Airways CEO Says Labor Accord Has Halved Pilot Losses"

"Mr. Bedford called the increased training requirement the “most significant headwind” to bringing in new pilots. The airline last year sought to take advantage of a slump in Brazilian air traffic to bring in foreign pilots, but was unable to get visas for them to fly in the U.S., he said."

I have a feeling that the ATP rule would quickly be changed if we had to go down the H1B visa route to find pilots....

TheBiggerD,

I suppose the Imperial Federal Government could throw enough word salad at this situation to ease up the functional requirements while claiming they actually didn't compromise voter "safety".

But I don't see any large scale intake of expats here in the USA. We'll have to see lower level operators disappearing by the score before there's an adjustment to current visa criteria.