CAREER PILOT Landing your dream job CAREER PILOT is designed to help you get your flying career off to the best start (www.aopa.org/careerpilot). There’s another fly in the airline hiring ointment » By Wayne Phillips ONE STEP BACK That “fly” is the forced retirement of hundreds of 50-seat regional jets. Aspiring airline pilots rely upon regional airline hiring to pull them up to the next rung on the career ladder. When major airlines put out the welcome mat, the regional jet captains move into the first officer seat of a Boeing or Airbus; the RJ first officer moves to the RJ captain’s chair; and the CFI or charter pilot moves to the right seat of an Embraer or Canadair. The regional airlines account for about 50 percent of all airline flying in the United States. They operate almost 13,000 flights daily and carry nearly one out of every four flying passengers. Some 75 THE REGIONAL AIRLINES ACCOUNT FOR ABOUT 50 PERCENT OF ALL AIRLINE FLYING IN THE UNITED STATES. THE OLD SAYING, “Two steps forward. One step back,” means that when forward momentum is finally achieved, something retards that progress, pushing it back— sometimes just a little, but sometimes a lot. It seems appropriate when attempting to describe the airline industry, particularly as a career path. Just when it seemed as if the airlines were pulling themselves out of the darkness of the post-9/11 doldrums, fuel prices went sky high. Just when all the forecasts called for robust hiring in the coming months—caused by both the slow economic recovery and major airline pilots finally hitting retirement age of 65—a fairly large fly in the ointment popped in. AP IMAGES JANUARY 2013 FLIGHT TRAINING / 45http://www.aopa.org/careerpilot