To Darth Vaders Love-child I must say that I find your post above quite astonishing. Although not a flier myself (except as a ‘frequent flyer’
, I am driven by my inquisitive mind to ask a few questions in response.
I presume from your first sentence that CP is pilot-speak for ‘Chief Pilot’? You go on to say
It is an absolute duty of any CP to find out all he can about an [sic] prospective employee. Especially where so many lives are at stake (the life of your wife, husband, son or daughter for example.)
Interestingly emotive argument, sir, utilising the safety issue to convey a false certitude with respect to the assertion you make as to what is a Chief Pilot’s ‘absolute duty’. May I ask where such duty is said to arise? Is it merely to be found in some job description? Do you believe it is founded in a specific statutory obligation? Do you say it is an ‘absolute duty’ arising from a general duty of care, that is, to not be negligent?
Surely there can be no duty, absolute or otherwise, to ‘find out all one can about a prospective employee’, especially by soliciting gossip, hearsay, or innuendo. Certainly there would be a duty to ensure that, in the recruitment of aircrew, they are, for example:
(i) appropriately qualified, and licensed by the regulatory authority;
(ii) medically fit and holding the relevant certificate; and
(iii) suitably experienced.
It is difficult to identify a duty to ‘find out all you can’ and it seems likely that to seek to do so would perhaps be invasive of the rights of the individual to such a degree that the seeker may become the ‘sought’, in the legal sense.
What truly astonishes me is the quite blatant way in which you describe your own methods of selection. You say:
Of the last 30 Pilots I have hired (except the 200hr 2nd Officers) I have been able to get a pretty good picture of 80% of them through existing line-pilots who may have worked either [presumably, ‘with’] them before or know someone who has.
Thus you pour scorn on traditional methods of pilot selection (including, it seems, the simulator) and resort to what is little more than a popularity poll. As for Mr Moto's apparent support of your position, it seems that his company too advocates the use of gossip and innuendo in the selection process. Perhaps he is one of your employees, sir? It does seem likely, given that the process smacks of discrimination, prejudice and blatant sycophancy.
You say that you are the Chief Pilot of a scheduled jet operator and that you made this post to provide us with some unspecified insight. Without in any way wishing to offer personal offence, I would be immeasurably grateful if you would go one step further in such provision by here stating the name of this operator so that I, for one, might henceforth avoid it like the plague.