Is education required to get a job with major airlines
Grammar, punctuation, syntax, are going the way of dinosaurs (sadly).
If you don't have the grammar, then your chances of correctly construing instructions in a manual are zero....
As in "Press any key".............. Where is the "any" key?
As in "Press any key".............. Where is the "any" key?
I have never been asked about tertiary qualifications in any job as a Pilot.
It was always hours, experience and flying assessments. The psychometric and behavioural style interviews came into play for large domestic airlines.
In fact I was never asked to provide anything from high school either. I always provided high school results in CVs, but were never asked about it. I know a couple of airlines require it (Qantas, Skywest) but I never interviewed with them.
Theoretically you could leave high school in year 10, pass your CPL and ATPL subjects and become an airline Pilot easily in this country.
An aviation degree is a waste of space. If you want a degree, get something useful as a back up (accounting, IT, or even law would be handy these days if you aspire to pilot councils and representing pilot groups).
GG
It was always hours, experience and flying assessments. The psychometric and behavioural style interviews came into play for large domestic airlines.
In fact I was never asked to provide anything from high school either. I always provided high school results in CVs, but were never asked about it. I know a couple of airlines require it (Qantas, Skywest) but I never interviewed with them.
Theoretically you could leave high school in year 10, pass your CPL and ATPL subjects and become an airline Pilot easily in this country.
An aviation degree is a waste of space. If you want a degree, get something useful as a back up (accounting, IT, or even law would be handy these days if you aspire to pilot councils and representing pilot groups).
GG
Although I got into airlines over 45 years ago with nothing more than 1500 hours, three years of high school education and a few ATPL subjects already passed, I really think times have changed.
The equipment, for a start, is less hands-on. Back then if your first airline aircraft was to be a DC3, some tailwheel time was more highly regarded than a Leaving Certificate. As long as your math was good enough to pass navigation and flight planning, and your written English good enough to describe various meteorological situations to the satisfaction of the examining board, that was about all the formal education needed.
Now, I expect that computer literacy would rate highly, although if recruiting was left up to me I would rather see a good aviation-associated technical trade qualification. An avionics LAME ticket perhaps.
But someone who can't string a sentence together in reasonably-correct English won't get through the door because first impressions DO count. And having got through the door, most substantial airlines will use something like the process of elimination I described earlier. Why? Because a) it's easy to do and b) because it's their train set, so they can.
Today, someone with the basic education that I had - i.e. three years of highschool - and someone with no willingness to self-improve via study courses, TAFE etc would probably be limited to a flying career of cattle mustering or scenic flights. They might just make some second level turbo-prop operation but even the RFDS would probably overlook someone lacking a good education - again because they can afford to be picky. Sorry to sound negative towards the OP, but if he/she did drop out of the education system too early, it needs to be said that self-improvement WILL be required to succeed, regardless of whether 'education' is really relevant to actually being able to fly an aeroplane.
The equipment, for a start, is less hands-on. Back then if your first airline aircraft was to be a DC3, some tailwheel time was more highly regarded than a Leaving Certificate. As long as your math was good enough to pass navigation and flight planning, and your written English good enough to describe various meteorological situations to the satisfaction of the examining board, that was about all the formal education needed.
Now, I expect that computer literacy would rate highly, although if recruiting was left up to me I would rather see a good aviation-associated technical trade qualification. An avionics LAME ticket perhaps.
But someone who can't string a sentence together in reasonably-correct English won't get through the door because first impressions DO count. And having got through the door, most substantial airlines will use something like the process of elimination I described earlier. Why? Because a) it's easy to do and b) because it's their train set, so they can.
Today, someone with the basic education that I had - i.e. three years of highschool - and someone with no willingness to self-improve via study courses, TAFE etc would probably be limited to a flying career of cattle mustering or scenic flights. They might just make some second level turbo-prop operation but even the RFDS would probably overlook someone lacking a good education - again because they can afford to be picky. Sorry to sound negative towards the OP, but if he/she did drop out of the education system too early, it needs to be said that self-improvement WILL be required to succeed, regardless of whether 'education' is really relevant to actually being able to fly an aeroplane.
Last edited by Mach E Avelli; 3rd Jul 2013 at 00:35.
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To some extent I agree. However there has to be at least a few people who can get their grammar, punctuation and syntax right otherwise there'll be no SOPS and manuals worth having.
Last edited by VH-FTS; 2nd Jul 2013 at 23:03.
Language is fluid and if modern usage dictates how language will evolve, expect no grammer and many abbreviations.
If you went back to English speakers 500 years ago, you'd probably have a hard time understanding them.
If you went back to English speakers 500 years ago, you'd probably have a hard time understanding them.
