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This could be your office!

This is the second part of the “10 Airline Interview Preparation Ideas” that I put together. It covers the last five items that I think are important in an interview but are not rarely discussed.

If you would like to read the first part of this article you can click here:

Airline Pilot Interview Tips – Part 1

6. Smile, Yes…Smile!

I remember during my interview with ExpressJet that practically no one smiled. Not me. Not my fellow interviewees. Not the interviewers. Everyone was so concerned with providing their “professional” image that it seems that everyone was afraid to crack a smile.

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I got an email from Dwayne in Georgia that subscribes to this blog. He had some very interesting questions about flying that were a lot of fun to answer.

I’ve copied our email discussion below. Have a read and see what you think. I would really like to hear your comments about the discussion. Also, Dwayne had some great suggestions for future articles. Again, if you would to see a particular aviation article or an article about being a professional pilot, just let me know.

OK…here is the email. Dwayne’s questions are in blue and my answers are in black:

Dwayne: I just wanted to say thanks for your blog. It has given me inspiration to make my dream happen. A little about me. I am a commercial pilot, single and multi, and a single engine CFI. In September of 2001 after finishing flight school, I was flying with the State of Georgia on an internship that I earned while finishing at the top of my class in flight school. I had been with them 4 months and had about 450 hours in the King Air C90B, then September 11th happened. I have not flown more than 50 hours since then, and never thought it would be possible to get a job after that, but I understand they have dropped the minimum hiring requirements. I have about 1300 hours, and 500+ multi time now. I am 39  and married with 2 kids, Beau-3 and Drew-19 months old. I have been in the Real Estate business since, and am doing really well even in the market we are in today. I guess I have s few questions you might be interested in answering.

Would I still be able to sell real estate, with my wife being my business partner even though I might be away 50% of the month?

Read the rest of this entry »

Illnesses happen on airplanes, too! I was reminded of this today.

We were in Calgary and we had just pushed back from the gate on our way to San Francisco when we got a call from one of our flight attendants. A passenger had taken to feeling ill and the flight attendant needed a moment to evaluate her.

The flight attendant smartly moved her up to an open first-class seat and though the passenger stated that she felt a little bit better, she was still not feeling well.

That statement made this a very easy decision for me. “Back to the gate!”

In My Mind

My thought process was “better here, on the ground and near the gate, rather than at 37,000 feet with the nearest airport 150 miles away.” This almosthappened to me once flying from Atlanta to Colorado Springs but luckily there was a doctor on board and the flight attendants administered oxygen and the passenger responded. We still had the EMTs meet us at the airplane and the passenger was taken off the airplane in a wheelchair but we didn’t have to divert. Close call.

So, once we committed to returning to the gate, a new set of priorities takes over. Notify operations and dispatch, get EMT/Paramedics to the airplane, keep the ill passenger comfortable and keep the other passengers informed.

Quick thought, one thing that I’ve been amazed at while flying for the airlines is that so many things unseen have to happen seamlessly to get one airplane off the ground and to the destination. One thing breaks down in the process and there goes your on-time departure. I’m always amazed at the complexity of the process.

Setting Priorities

It is no different when you switch from “go fly mode” to “emergency mode.” Things again have to happen in a particular order in order to work. So once we decided to return to the gate, I had my responsibilities, the first officer had his, the flight attendants had theirs, the gate agents had theirs, and the EMT had theirs. We first notified operations who collected the information about the passenger and passed it onto the EMTs. If it works right, it should only take a few minutes for the EMTs to get to the airplane and assess the passenger. All the while, everyone is busy doing “their” jobs. Then, after the passenger is either cleared to fly or removed from the flight, now it is time to get back to “go fly mode” and head for the destination.

From my perspective I have to decide whether I still have enough fuel or do I need to take on more. What about the bags? Has there been a change in the weight of the airplane that needs to be considered? What about weather? If we have already de-iced/anti-iced, do we need to do it again. Is my flight plan still active? How are the passengers and my crew doing. There is a lot to consider and it takes team work to get it done. Ultimately the captain makes the final decision but you have to have input from your crew if implementation is to be successful.

So this particular passenger was removed from the flight and we were notified that the passenger would be taken to the hospital for evaluation. Yeah, that could have happened at 37,000 feet and we would have been a lot worse off than we were now…i.e., the passenger would have had to suffer longer and we would be more than just an hour behind schedule.

Time To Re-Evaluate The Decisions

Now once we were finally airborne it was time to evaluate the events that had occurred and see if there was something that we could have done differently. To me it seemed that this was a fairly simple exercise, but I did score poorly on two accounts:

It was then that I realized that we needed a checklist when something like this happens. I found the acronym SAMPLE which provides a nice beginning guideline for evaluating the situation:

1. Signs and Symptoms
2. Allergies
3. Medications
4. Past History
5. Last Oral Intake
6. Events Leading Up To the Present Illness or Injury

Then, once I saw everything working out, I should have switched my attention sooner to getting the airplane airborne again. As it turns out, we usually do an automated manifest that calculates everything for us, but in this instance, there was a data mismatch so we had to do a manual manifest which takes minutes longer. I didn’t see that one coming but I will remember it for the next time.

It Is a Team Effort

A lot of credit goes to my flight attendants, they did their jobs very well. One of my flight attendants did a quick water service for the passengers while we were waiting, which I know the passengers appreciated. When we got to San Francisco, everyone seemed very appreciative for our efforts and that is always appreciated by us.

Anyway, I hope this entry provides some insight into what happens when you have an illness (emergency) on your flight. I feel I got off easy on this one, but maybe it happened for a reason. Maybe someday I will have to pull upon what I learned and practiced today on some future flight where the decisions will not be so clear cut. Regardless, that is basically what flying…and life, if you want to take it that far…is all about. Learning from your experiences and applying them to your life as necessary.

Well, till next time…Be Safe…

Jeffrey

P.S. So have you ever had a medical emergency or otherwise? I would love to hear about it. Leave your experience in the comment section below.

And if emergencies are your thing, then here are some products you might be interested in:

• 121.5 Real-Life Emergencies Video – Gripping, edge-of-your-seat action, with real pilots in real trouble!
• Handling In-Flight Emergencies – Most in-flight emergencies can be safely resolved if the pilot has the proper training and mental attitude. Don’t pass this book up!
• Jeppesen CRM – Exploring the Human Element Video (DVD) – This video explores United Airline’s human factors training program. I saw this video in flight school during my CRM training. Very enlightening!

Jeffrey is a captain at a regional airline and flies the CRJ-200, CRJ-700, and the CRJ-900. He has over 4000 hrs of flying experience in many different airplanes and is a Gold Seal flight instructor to his credit. He has recently written “The CRJ200 Quicknote Study Guide” that simplifies the systems of the CRJ200 into a easy-to-understand, downloadable eBook. Click here to get your copy today!

Are you ready when you get that airline interview?

Having your logbook current is not the only thing that has to be up-to-date. You have to be better prepared than the pilot next to you if you want to be the one that gets hired.

If you don’t have a logbook, you can pick up a terrific electronic pilot logbook here or the best professional pilot hardcopy logbook here!

So, in today’s entry, I’ll discuss five of the lesser known ideas that will guarantee success in your next airline interview and never underestimate the importance of preparation. It could be the difference between you getting the job or the pilot next to you getting the job.

Post note: So you don’t have to go searching for it, here is the link to Part 2. Just click here.

Let’s begin —

1. Research, Research, Research

Have you thought about the airline that you want to fly for? What do you know about them? Who are their key leaders? Do you know specifics about how they fit into the industry?

If you don’t, start with the obvious places like their website. Get to know their organization, their management leaders, and the name of the hiring manager. Then drill-down deeper and research these people, their company and the industry, in general, using Google.

Check Google News and see what the world is saying about them and the industry.

Create Google Alerts to let you know when the companies or any of the executives show up in the news.

2. References

Are your references up-to-date? When was the last time you talked to them and checked their information?

If you haven’t talked to them in awhile, give them a courtesy call to catch up. Let them know that you are going to be interviewing again soon and that they may get a call from a recruiter at that airline.

There have been many instances where I’ve gotten a phone call from an airline recruiter about a former student or colleague without even knowing they were going to an interview. It took me a moment to compose my thoughts, but I always gave them a raving review. It would have been nice to know though.

3. Your Airline Resume

You need to make sure that your resume is 100% correct. This is so important, so I’ll say it again…make sure that your resume is 100% correct. If you haven’t had a minimum of five people read your resume, start passing it around. It is a matter of seeing the forest-from-the-trees, or is it the trees-from-the-forest? Either way, you are probably too close to your resume and can’t see the glaring error(s). If you can’t find five people, consider a resume service that will review your resume. It is that important!

Also, though this may sound obvious, it is very rarely done…READ YOUR RESUME OUT LOUD! Remember the details and review it daily for five days before you go to the interview. You need to be able to discuss your resume without looking at it during the interview. Having that “deer-in-the-headlights” stare when they ask you about something on your resume is the last thing you need.

And though flight hours are important, also try to convey the skills and benefits, other than being a pilot, that you will bring to the organization.

Want me to review your resume and cover letter? Sign-up for my resume review service. You can learn more about it in my Articles section. Just click here now.

4. Create a Profile Letter of Yourself

What is a “profile letter” you ask?

A profile letter is a less formal letter than a resume that reflects your personality and your voice. It should be clear, concise, and compelling statement about you. It provides a complete picture of you. Keep it to one page and just freestyle write it, but check your spelling too. Hit the highlights of your career and examine your thoughts about your past. It shouldn’t take you any longer than an hour to write it. Just write about you!

Now it may sound a bit silly to do this step, but believe me, it is vitally important. You have to know you, before you can convince others that you are the one that they want to hire.

To get a good idea of what a profile should look like, visit the article by Guy Kawasaki posted on LinkedIn about the “Profile Extreme Makeover.”

5. Create Sound Bites

I use 3×5 inch index cards for this. Much like when I study airplane systems, I write down typical questions that interviewers ask and then practice the responses. I carry them around with me and practice, practice, practice. Work on a “long” response and a “short” response to these questions. A long response should be no longer than 2 minutes. The short response should be 30 seconds. You want to be clear and concise with your answers.

Did I mention “practice?” What practice does is help you refine your answers. If you rehearse using another person, they can evaluate and critique you and it lets you practice saying your answers to a person. You may want to consider recording your responses on a recorder and then critique yourself. The goal is to make your responses second nature so that you can focus on the interviewers subtle responses to your answers so that you can adjust as you go along. If your answers appear spontaneous and unrehearsed but confident they will know that they are interviewing the next first officer they are going to hire.

Consider this, when you first started doing stalls and steep turns, you had to practice them over and over till you got it right. Practicing for an interview is the same thing. You have to practice till you get it right!

In my next entry, I will cover five more important topics that will help you score well with the interviewers.

For now, re-read the five points above so that you understand them and don’t forget to leave a comment or question below.

To Your Flying Success…

Jeffrey

P.S. If you have any interview experiences, good or bad, please share them with us by leaving a comment below.

Here is some more recommended reading:

• Checklist for Success – Successful Airline Interview – A pilot’s guide to the successful airline interview and how to improve your competitiveness and chances of being hired!
• Checklist for Success CD – Virtual Interview Preparation – Remember the “Law of Intensity?” Well see and hear examples of both good and bad interview scenarios. It will really stick with you!
• Reporting Clear? – A pilot’s interview guide to background checks and presentation of personal history. I wish that I had this when I was getting hired. It would have taken me a lot less time!

What good aviation blogger hasn’t written a few words about the US Airways, Flight 1549?

As my wife and I were talking last night, she thought that I should write a few words about it, but from a different perspective. You see, we both agreed that what happened was both unfortunate…and terrific. Unfortunate because it happened. Nobody I know wants to see an accident happen. Terrific, because nobody was hurt.

You can attribute the success of emergency to a lot of different factors though. Yes, the captain did a great job. Yes, the first officer did a great job. Yes, the flight attendants did a great job! None of those are in question. But a lot of other things also went their way too.

Consider where this accident happened. New York. If ever there was an airline accident to happen this is the place for it to happen. New York is so triggered for things like this that their response to the accident was immediate! There is probably no other airport environment, other than D.C., that could have responded so quickly.

Consider the landing sight. The Hudson River. (You can see the flight track here.) As densely populated as New York is and the direction of flight on that particular day, the route of the flight during the emergency offered just about the most perfect place to land, all things considered. Minimum collateral damage if things go wrong. Easy access to the airplane for rescue. Granted, if the captain hadn’t landed the airplane so skillfully, the results might have been different but he landed the airplane in one piece.

If you remember the United Airlines Flight 232 Sioux City crash back in 1989 which had massive hydraulic failure. They landed near a runway, but things went wrong, and as a result there were massive fatalities. Fortunately though, and maybe a bit ironically, just days before, the airport had run an exercise to in the event of just such an accident which probably saved many lives that day.

What else went right?

Consider the weather. The weather was visual flight rules, i.e., VFR. So the crew could visually see out the cockpit window. As it has been so many times this winter with snow and limited visibility, just because they could see out their window greatly improved their chances of success. Now with this in mind, consider the two points above. Landing site. Location.

Finally…consider the experience of the crew. All were veterans. I think I read that the combined experience of the flight attendants was 54 years. I don’t know much about the captain or the first officer but I do know this…the captain had over 40 years experience flying. If he had just 20 years as a captain, that would mean that he had over 40 simulator rides where he had to deal with emergencies like engine failures, hydraulic failures, etc. He would have landed the airplane single engine each and every time and watched as the first officer landed the airplane single engine. The FAA mandates that we do it and the Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) Practical Test Standards states the requirements of the whole simulator ride. He had a lot of practice in emergencies. I dare to say, he probably didn’t have any water landings.

So, with that in mind, and considering the character and experience of the crew, you probably couldn’t have asked for a better crew and environment conditions to deal with such an emergency. If any one of the above had been different; the results might have been different. Thankfully, they weren’t.

My Thoughts

As my wife was dropping off our daughter at pre-school the other day, several of the moms asked my wife, knowing that her husband was a pilot, what she thought about the accident. She said that she really hadn’t thought about it much except that she knew that what I do can be dangerous but typically no more dangerous than driving down the road, usually. She also said she was extremely happy that there were no fatalities and that she hoped that it never happened again. She explained that if I had been the captain of that airplane, based on what she knows about my training and my personality, she thinks (and hopes) that I would have responded similarly. Who knows? I should hope so, but what it comes down to is that you don’t know EXACTLY how you will respond until it happens. I would never second-guess what the captain did because I was not there. I train for such events but again, until it happens, you don’t know if you will deal with it or cry like a little girl.

This I am pretty sure of this though, Captain Sullenberger was not going to give up. He was going to do whatever he and his crew could do until that last nano second of either successfully landing the airplane and saving his passengers or perish in the effort.

I often think, probably because I’ve been programmed through years of flight training, to consider what I would do if an emergency developed at any point in the flight. I’m sure Captain Sullenberger does as well, as well as his first officer. It’s a habit.

A Few More Thoughts

It has been over a week now since the accident and I’ve waited this long to write about it because I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. If you notice, none of the crew have made comments or appeared in public (as of this writing) and I think that was the right thing to do.

There were a lot of unknowns that had to be answered first, like:

• What was the actual extent of the damage?
• What did the cockpit voice recorder have to say?
• What did the flight data recorder have to say?
• What did the training records of the flight crew have to say?
• What did the maintenance records of the airplane have to say?
• What was the physical condition of the crew?
• And probably many more…

But as it is developing, it seems that everything is in order, which I’m personally very happy about. Now, we can say that they did their job right! Are they heroes? Yes and no. I would bet that the crew, if you asked them, and when they finally speak, will say that they were just doing their jobs!

OK, now they are heroes!!!

Be safe…

Jeffrey