quote:

Originally posted by White Phosphorus:
Don't airplanes pretty much land themselves these days?

For your sake, I hope that's an attempt at humor.

One, I've flown a lot, I mean a 'lot', over the past 15 years, and United isn't even in the running for my airfare. Total crap airline. Two, if you do opt to fly United, make sure your surviving spouse or family member knows the litigation door has now been flung wide open by the morons in charge of United. Any plane that goes down will now be tainted first and foremost with the assumption of pilot incompetence. United's going to need to up their fares to reserve enough cash for the lawsuits that should come from this 'woke' decision making.

Do they make rims and lift kits for airliners? What about the green fluorescent lights so they can back light the landing gear? Regards 18DAI

quote:

Originally posted by 18DAI:
Do they make rims and lift kits for airliners? What about the green fluorescent lights so they can back light the landing gear? Regards 18DAI

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:
How does this square with the pilot's union?

As long as the new affirmative action hired employees pay their union dues...

As someone who has need to fly local airlines in countries like China and India, my concerns about the maintenance of the planes and the qualifications of the pilots are greater than any US-based airline where at least the FAA is overseeing things.

That said, yeah I want the most qualified flight crews regardless of demographics. My point is United isn't doing anything new or particularly profound, they are just packaging it nicely to appeal to the "woke". My own employer has pledged to bring black employment levels to 10% of the total company in the wake of George Floyd and BLM. Ironically the only way they seem to be able to do that is by sponsoring visas for African immigrants.

As a current 1K on United, and half a decade as Global Services, I might tell them those of us who have logged over 100,000 actual flight miles a year on transcontinental flights do not appreciate any appearance of preferential hiring based on race and gender.

I live a short 1/2 hour flight from a United hub and I have had business reasons to go to China, South Korea, Japan, India, UK, and Brazil. The preferred choices provided by my employer are United or Delta. And Delta's recent BS about the new voting laws in Georgia. Only United has the global reach I need, and partnerships with other airlines through Star Alliance.

Lifetime UA Global Service here, earned the hard way with over 4 million miles butt in seat. I'm extremely dismayed at Kirby's recent "woke" statement, but I will reserve judgment until I talk to a few friends who are current senior wide body UAL captains.

I want THE BEST and most capable pilots driving my ass around the world, and if the very best are all green haired midgets who only eat kale then UA should hire a shit load of them... not 50% LGBQRTXYZ black or any other color or ???

Bad enough they have 135 737-max, but now they're going to couple that flying challenge with affirmative action pilots.

Houston has 2 airports:

Hobby (South of downtown) - prior to '60 was the main airport but now more of a regional airport (e.g. #1 destination is Dallas).

Bush Intercontinental (North of Downtown) - 7th busiest airport in US. It used to be a Continental Airline hub and since being "merged" with United customer service has went downhill and every longtime Houstonian I know misses Continental. United has nearly 78% of the flights in and out of IAH.

I'm pretty much stuck with United for business travel.

---

Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
Now lets remember that United has lots of flights to Asia and code-shares on Star Alliance flights by Air China, Asiana (Korea), and ANA (Japan). So that means they might want pilots that speak those languages and given the number of routes, that might be like 10-15%.

As I understand it, communication between ATC and aircraft on international flights is English. So being from China, Japan or Korea doesn't seem to bring any advantages in the way you're trying to rationalize it.

Pilot unions don't dictate who gets hired, and new hires aren't protected until they've been on the property for a year. The unions don't have much say in who gets hired.

Who does get hired depends at many airlines very much on who someone knows. That has a lot more to do with getting an interview and getting hired, than "being the best."

The best of the best of the best is a Hollywood idea.

What it comes down to is training and standardization, which is what makes airlines as safe as they are...not hiring the best of the best of the best. In a world of such standardized phraseology that simply using one word out of turn is not tolerated, it's all about doing exactly what is required, in the way required, and nothing else. Training is thorough, frequent, and checked and tested on an ongoing basis. Pairing is between experienced pilots and often other experienced pilots, with inexperience being paired with experience in most cases.

What an airline can't teach is judgement, which is learned throughout one's career by exposure to new events, and repeated exposure to old events (I understand something differently today than yesterday). Hopefully the new-hire brings some element of judgment with him or her.

It's worth keeping in mind that most of the airline new-hires today enter in at the regionals, and they enter there with no experience behind them. Until a few years ago, there was a long period in which pilots needed only 250 hours to get hired, and came into the airline environment knowing exactly nothing. Airlines are THE entry-level job.

By the time a pilot makes it to the "main line" or to the "majors" or "legacy" carriers, it's assumed the pilot has some level of experience. For many today, it's only what they gained in their time flying in the regionals...a place where their hand is held and the system is designed to take kids who know nothing, and keep them mostly in line. It's assumed, in most cases, that pilots reaching the majors have a level of maturity to temper judgement, regardless of their gender or color.

What this means for those moving into United's mainline seats is that mostly pilots who have come from the regionals will continue to come from the regionals; it's just that some with ethnicity or who are female, will get a chance at it before white males. That's all. They'll have come from the same job pipeline, doing the same thing, getting the same training, yada, yada, yada.

Today, pilots can't go to a regional without having completed their ATP pilot certificate, which requires 1,500 hours of flying. By comparison, when I was younger, it was nearly impossible to get a call from the commuters with less than 2,500 hours or more, and one was typically expected to have years of experience to get those hours. Not so any more. Experience has been tossed out the window for a long, long time, and what most airline pilots have, came from doing the same thing every day, regionals, then majors.

By comparison, most of the world uses airline pilots that come to them with zero experience; most use "ab initio" programs in which they train their candidates from zero, and the candidates consequently have never done anything else. It creates a strong training environment, but an extremely narrow experience base. The results turn up in events like the Ethiopian and Lion Air crashes of the 737 max...such basic lapses of airmanship that could only lead to incompetence and lack of judgement (from lack of experience) in the cockpit. Unthinkable in the US...yet it's said that the regulations in the US are written in bloood...because nearly every change and element of progress in the regulation has been forced by a loss of life.

If you're counting on United or anyone else to hire the best of the best of the best, stop watching so much television. If you're counting on them to provide you with safe travel, then you're counting on their training and standardization to do it's job, regardless of who comes in the door, and that will be the case regardless of which airline you fly.

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
Looking at the numbers, let's work this out:

50% of new pilots will be white men. That is significantly higher than population parity.

The remaining 50% will be women or people of color. So that means maybe 25% white women, and 25% minorities. Now lets remember that United has lots of flights to Asia and code-shares on Star Alliance flights by Air China, Asiana (Korea), and ANA (Japan). So that means they might want pilots that speak those languages and given the number of routes, that might be like 10-15%.

There's no advantage to hiring pilots who speak foreign languages; the international language is English, and even US native speakers must carry an endorsement on their pilot certificate identifying English competency. I fly to Japan and Korea regularly, and speak English with the controllers, many of whom speak it better than I do. Having taught Chinese, Asian, Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese students, all were required to communicate in English, and their native language was not allowed in flight training.

No, 50% do not need to be "white men." The requirement is that half of the new hires are women and minorities. At United in particular, the number of women and minorities could be significantly higher.

So far as "white men" being in parity with society, not so in the cockpit. Overwhelmingly across the board, most pilots are men. Most are white. This isn't a race issue, but simply a reflection of the pilot demographics. It's not like there are large numbers of women and minorities being held outside the secret circle. There are just a lot more pilots who happen to be male, and happen to be white, out there who start and complete pilot training, and stick it out long enough to survive the early years of their career...and that's what drives most who start, to quit. Starvation, frustration, and in many cases, no clear path. But, that's aviation.

Is this the same airline that breaks guitars and beats up passengers?

All affirmative action = racism

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by White Phosphorus:
Don't airplanes pretty much land themselves these days?

For your sake, I hope that's an attempt at humor.

White Phosphorus might have been joking, but he (she?) is partially correct. Some autopilots do have "auto-land" function.

Autoland requires the highest level of training, checking, and certification, and it's not an automatic arrival and landing. If one arrives for the approach and autoland isn't available (navaid outage, signal interference, hydraulic problem, electrical problem, flight control problem, FMC problem, etc), then it's all about the pilot conducting the approach manually.

We have a large contingent of pilots out there who lack basic proficiency in hand flying airplanes, and who seem lost when there's no magenta line to follow. Recently in a simulator training event, I received a runway chance. It was a simple hard-tuning of the localizer and done, but the F/O went ass over teakettle trying to set up the FMS, taking out the old procedure, putting in the new, and then when he encountered a problem, was stuck. Meanwhile, I intercepted and flew the procedure, and called for the checklist. It's axiomatic that basic airmanship is never wrong, but we've got two generations of pilots out there (at least) who are often so busy trying to figure out how to program the chair, they forget just to sit down.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:

Recently in a simulator training event, I received a runway chance. It was a simple hard-tuning of the localizer and done

I assume that you meant "runway change," not "runway chance."

I learned about that (last minute runway change) the first time I went to RDU. IMC, hand flying the approach, no autopilot in the airplane, approach control told me to side-step to the parallel runway. Dumb of me not to be ready, but this was something that I had never encountered before, I was totally unprepared for it. Frantic page-flipping in the Jeppesen binder, looking for the LOC freq for the parallel.

Lesson learned: From then on, the LOC for the parallel was always set in the standby window, just a button press away from being used.

Guppy is right, there are a whole bunch of pilots out there who wouldn't know what to do with a book of Jepps, the low or high enroute foldouts, or the "joy" in updating the book every 28 days.

That, I don't miss. Not even a little.

Of course, old enroute charts made great gift wrapping paper.

I'm that cheap.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
That, I don't miss. Not even a little.

Of course, old enroute charts made great gift wrapping paper.

I'm that cheap.

You’re right. As awesome as ForeFlight is (Thank goodness I’ll never do another Jepps checklist!!!), no more free wrapping paper. Sigh...

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
We have a large contingent of pilots out there who lack basic proficiency in hand flying airplanes, and who seem lost when there's no magenta line to follow. Recently in a simulator training event, I received a runway chance. It was a simple hard-tuning of the localizer and done, but the F/O went ass over teakettle trying to set up the FMS, taking out the old procedure, putting in the new, and then when he encountered a problem, was stuck. Meanwhile, I intercepted and flew the procedure, and called for the checklist. It's axiomatic that basic airmanship is never wrong, but we've got two generations of pilots out there (at least) who are often so busy trying to figure out how to program the chair, they forget just to sit down.

Sounds like the pilots who crashed Aisana 214 at SFO several years back

I take some comfort in the fact that most airlines recruit experienced former military pilots. Just the same I will stick with Southwest whenever possible