does embry-riddle offer the minimum flight hours required to be hired by a (regional) airlines?
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James G asked:
I am planning on becoming a pilot. However instead of getting a 4year degree and then going to flight school (to earn additional licensing and flight hours). I was looking for a place where I can accomplish both at a college.degree and earn minimum flight hours required to be hired by a small (regional) airlines. Does Embry-riddle offer this, if not, do any of you know of any other places?
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I am planning on becoming a pilot. However instead of getting a 4year degree and then going to flight school (to earn additional licensing and flight hours). I was looking for a place where I can accomplish both at a college.degree and earn minimum flight hours required to be hired by a small (regional) airlines. Does Embry-riddle offer this, if not, do any of you know of any other places?
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November 21st, 2008 at 1:57 am
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Yes and no, with the regionals, they will make exceptions on the TT requirements if you come from a reputable school, with a degree, and all the necessary ratings (Inst. Multi. Commercial) Are there some that come out of college and get a job, absolutly… but those are the guys that finish their training early and start instructing to build time while still in school… Practically, I think the best option is to go to a school like Embry or North Dakota and then spend a year or two flight instructing, both gaining valuable time on the resume and bettering your flying skills…
November 23rd, 2008 at 2:11 pm
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It all depends on how much money you want to be on debt when you get a flying job.
Generally speaking, it is cheaper to get your pilot licenses and ratings under Part 61 (independent flight schools..FBOs and the like) rather than Part 141 school (university programs like ERAU and other license ‘factory’ schools). The rental of the aircraft at these 141 schools is NOT included in the tuition you pay, neither is the instruction, so you are essentially paying more than if you were to attend the same college, or another college for that matter, and do your flight training on the side.
The only perceived advantage as to why one would choose to fork out the cash for these aviation universities is on their bridge programs. This means that many of these schools have agreements with several regional airlines where they will interview you (not guarantee you a job mind you) with reduced flight time requirements than those they would require from applicants who are not graduates of the aforementioned schools. The difference is not worth it in my opinion, at the most 200 hours reduction.
To answer your primary question, NO, ERAU nor any other aviation university has as part of their syllabus enough hours to get hired by most regional airlines. HOWEVER, I hope you have done some research on the regional airline game, because it is UGLY. Some regionals nowadays have NO minimum flight time requirements, that means anybody with a fresh commercial license with multi-engine land priviledges and an instrument rating can effectively interview. For a part 61 program if you had gotten your licenses that way, the minimum flight time to take the commercial checkride (either single engine land or multi engine land) is 250 TT (total time), so that tells you how bad the game is at the regionals. That is VERY LOW time in case you don’t know what that means.
Now, most of the regionals hiring with no flight time requirements are pretty bad places to work. BAD work rules, gone a lot from home (yes it is part of the nature of the job but I’m talking BAD even by the average airline work standards!!!!) and what I hope more people know about: CRAPPY PAY…18-20K a year, that’s less than cost of living for a single individual,,i.e. you’re living at home to stay on the black at the end of the month, or you’re living in college again.
You can find “better” regionals to work for, but the flight time minimums for the better ones is between 800TT and 1000TT. Also, they require at least 100 hours of multi-time, this is usually what stops potential applicants with otherwise total time requirements met. Why you ask? To piggyback on the question about flight time…most people get their flight instructor licenses (CFI, CFII, MEI) and flight instruct to be able to get the kind of flight time required to apply at the better regionals. The pay of a CFI is also abysmal, but most actually take a paycut when they move on to their first year at a regional airline, if that tells you anything. In order to get the total time up and also get some multi-time without forking out $150-175/hr and rent a twin piston for 100 hours, they wait until the flight school they work for allows them to get multi-engine students and flight instruct in multis until they have the required time to apply at the regional of interest.
Another perceived benefit of the university programs is that they train you with the mentality of an airline pilot. They stress checklist usage (which would otherwise be somewhat overkill in a simple system aircraft like a single engine piston) since that is they type of flying (flying a regional aircraft involves less than half the hand-flying time you get flying a cessna, it’s all auto-pilot time, it’s quite dissapointing to some) you’ll be doing at the airlines. But, being a military pilot and a civilian holder of flight instructor licenses and never stepped foot in an aviation university, I can tell you it’s not worth the money.
Let’s do some math shall we? ERAU at 4 years of tuition is about 80K , and then you add flight rentals, fees, instruction fees, and checkride fees for your private pilot, instrument rating, commercial single engine and multi-engine ADD-ON, then CFI, CFII (instrument instructor), and MEI (multi-engine instructor) brother you’re looking at 50K+. So you graduate from ERAU with 130K in debt with about 250TT to go work as a CFI for a couple of years at about 20-25K a year if you bust your butt (CFIs get paid by the hour flown, not by the time they are at work..so out of the 8hrs you were at work you get paid 1/2 to 2/3 of that) to eventually interview for a job whose starting pay is $19/hr with most months crediting 80 hours. So you’re effectively going for a 18K a year job with six figures of debt. Who does this? People who don’t need the money. It is obvious that either their parents paid for this bad economic move or they are trust fund babies who can afford to artificially pad their income to be able to “afford” to work at such economic loss. If you’re one of these individuals, you’re part of the problem and I don’t have much sympathy for your fate. If you’re just another poor kid who wants to fly for a living, may I suggest you forego the aviation schools, go to a in-state school, major in something other than aviation science and get your ratings on the side. I did it one summer at a time and saved a considerable amount of money in the long run.
I understand you want to expedite you time taken to get to an airline job, but it’s a catch-22, if you fork out the cash you can get the flight time, but you won’t make enough money to make it worthwhile. if you CFI, you’ll eventually get the time and not be in debt as much, but you’re still making ramen noodle salaries for a couple of more years as a CFI. I would recommend the latter or get a job you can tolearte, make good money and fly your own airplane on the weekends. I don’t think piston aircraft are a good representation of the kind of flying airline work entails, so most people think airline flying is as dynamic as light airplane flying, it is not, it’s very automated and less hand flying, so I’d soul search heavily before committing.
Hope this answers your questions. Good luck
November 25th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
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Don’t you need more than 500 hours of multi-engine turbine time to be hired?
If so you will graduate from ERAU with zero turbine hrs, so no.
ERAU has not turbine aircraft at this time.
November 26th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
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There are several regional airlines that currently have zero minimum hour requirements and several are as low as 300 hours TTL Time. PSA & Piedmont currently only require a Commercial Multi-Engine w/Instrument. Build your time with the sub-regionals and then move on to the American Eagle or horizon class regional.
So yes, Embry Riddle can get you your requirements and the degree will help, but you can go to any flight school to get the license & ratings for much less and in less time. You don’t need to be a CFI to get a job flying. And the reduced hour requirements are making it hard for schools to find instructors.
And just a tip, stay away from Mesa Airlines. Rumor is they treat their pilots like crap.