Career Adviser: One last shot

» A: Grant, you are not alone. If you read the June 2016 Flight Training article on Sarah Rovner’s journey to SkyWest (“Hired by a Regional”), you learned that more than half of the pilots showing up for new-hire training at that regional airline were in their forties or older. Taking one last shot at fulfilling a long-deferred flying dream is not unusual.

I spoke recently with the folks at JetBlue to learn about the airline’s unique program, called Gateway Select. I plan to discuss the program in detail in the September issue, but here are a few initial thoughts.

The concept of ab initio training is not new. Foreign carriers have had such programs for decades. There are some essential differences between JetBlue’s ab initio and what I would term true ab initio.

A true ab initio program is one that is funded by the airline and trains someone to be only an airline pilot “from the beginning.” Virtually every U.S. flight school or academy, including Gateway Select, trains its pilots to be CFIs first. Not so with the foreign carriers. From the very first hour, the focus is on flying a Transport category aircraft and, usually, the airline picks up the tab. Academies and aviation universities do integrate advanced systems and airline-type training in their curriculums, but there is no way to escape flight instructing for an extended period.

The JetBlue version, which has been widely publicized as a new and innovative effort to recruit and train pilots for its own ranks, is laudable. I had predicted that the airlines, in the face of a real pilot shortage, would need to come to the table with more incentives and innovation. Hiring bonuses and retention pay have become the norm in the regional airline industry. In its effort to acquire and develop pilot talent, JetBlue is the first major U.S. carrier to put such a program in place in recent times.

As good as it is, however, the Gateway Select program probably is not ideal for you. Gateway Select is designed for a person with zero flight hours. That newbie will invest up to four years going through the multiple phases of training, leading to the flight deck of a JetBlue Embraer ERJ. That cost is $125,000. Everyone becomes a flight instructor along the way and earns flight time toward the airline transport pilot certificate requirement of 1,500 hours at its training facility in Arizona. It will be a long haul from day one until you are driving an ERJ in a JetBlue uniform.

One program that might be worth investigating is the ATP Flight School Fast Track program. It costs $79,000, takes about two years, and results in a job with one of the flight school’s regional partners. Additionally, the airline will reimburse up to $11,000 of the tuition costs.

Of course, there is always the good old-fashioned way of getting in the game by racking up 1,500 hours of flight time and applying to every regional airline out there. Those air carriers are virtually begging for flying talent, and you may have a good shot at it on your own.

Wayne Phillips manages the Airline Training Orientation Program (www.atopjets.com). Send your career questions to [email protected] and we’ll publish the best ones here.