American Trans Air FREE Pilot Interview Information and Gouge
American Trans Air 
|
Become a PROFESSIONAL Pilot on Aviation Interviews and get...
Don't be "that pilot" at your interview that doesn't have all the information that your competition does!
|
American Trans Air Pilot Interview:
ATA Interview
Show up in Indy the night before the interview- they put us up at the la Quinta right next to the airport. Get up the next morning for the free continental breakfast and check out of the hotel. An ATA van will pick you up around 7:45 to 8:00am. They will take everyone over to ATA headquarters for the interview. There were 7 guys in my group.
At HQ, they take you into a briefing room to start filling out paperwork which includes a 24 month training contract. While doing paperwork- several people came in to talk to us about the company including the Chief Pilot- Dave Lindskoog. All were very friendly and extremely informative. Told all of us that if we were hired we would be going into the 737-800. Each one of us was taken individually to do 2 separate interviews- one with HR and one with a pilot. Everything was pretty straight foreward. Questions they asked were:
HUMAN RESOURCES
Tell me about your flying carreer up to this point?
How do you feel about CRM?
How do you fight complacency on a long flight?
Being a pilot- what kind of things bother you?
Tell me about yourself?
How do you keep yourself motivated?
PILOT INTERVIEW
Give 3 words to describe yourself?
Describe yourself as a person?
Describe yourself as a pilot?
What makes a good Captain?
Why do you want to work for ATA?
What type of decisions are the hardest to make?
What type of things do you do on your days off?
Any incidents or accidents?
Any moving violations?
We finished our interviews and filling out the paperwork around 12:15 or so. They never asked to see our logbooks to verify our flight time against our resume's. They told us to relax and that the job was already 90% ours- we just had to proove ourselves in the 727 sim that evening at Purdue University in Lafayette.
They loaded all of us into the van again to take us to lunch at a buffet restaurant. They invite anyone from the company who wants a free lunch to come along to meet all of the interviewees. There was a couple line captains and a few other management people that showed up. Make conversation, ask intellegent questions and mind your manners! The food is free so eat up and remember they are watching how you behave in a social setting.
After lunch they load everyone back into the van to head up towards Lafayette to check into another hotel. It is about an hour van ride but it gives you a chance to get to know everyone and most importantly to ask the van driver any questions you have about the company. He is not a pilot but knows a lot and also has a lot of say on who gets hired. He knows a lot about the interview process and has gotten a lot of pilots hired at ATA. Don't act like a jerk on the way up to Lafayette- the driver could give you a bad reccomendation. We checked into the hotel and had about 2 hours to rest before the sim. I highly reccomend using these 2 hours to take a nap as it ends up being a long day- we finished at about 11:15 that night.
Change out of your suit into slacks and a polo shirt and they pick you up at about 4:15 to take you over to the sim at Purdue. First they administer a 10 question multiple choice test on approach plates, enroute charts and SIDS- so study those. Know the distance between runway centerline lights (50 feet).
After the test, they give a very thorough brief on what to expext in the sim. The sim ride in is in a 727-100 sim (get some time if you do not have any jet time). They asked all of us if we had a chance to fly the sim ahead of time- be honest with them. The ride is about a half-hour in length.
Make sure to ask for the ATIS and a departure clearance before departing. Give a departure brief (use a format that you use in your current airplane). They will ask you about take-off mins and when do you need a take-off alternate. Know the significance of alternating red & white centline lights, solid red centerline lights, and amber runway edge lights. Don't forget to ask for the landing clearance! The person with the most flight time will go first on the sim- least flight time goes last. If you do not go first then you will be able to get some gouge from the other people as they come out of the sim one at a time.
They have you take-off from 14R @ ORD on a made up SID that requires you to be at 3,000ft until 6 DME from ORD VOR and then climb on course, level off at assigned altitude and maitain at or below 250 knots. Do not bust 250kts.
Once they see that you know how to intercept a radial and that you can maintain an airspeed, they clear you direct to another VOR to hold- your non-flying pilot will copy holding instructions for you. While enroute to the holding fix, they will ask you what type of entry you are going to use. They want to see you transfer controls to the guy in the other seat while you figure out the correct holding entry. They will give you a couple of different holding exercises. Tell them the correct entries and you will not have to actually do the hold but just explain how you will enter it. They will also ask you questions about holding while flying toward the holding fix:
(1) Within how many minutes from the fix do you have to start slowing down to holding speed?
(2) Based on our current groundspeed, what DME will you start slowing for the hold?
(3) What is the max holding speed below 6,000ft, 6,001-14,000ft, and above 14,000ft?
(4) What time should you use for the inbound leg below 14,000ft? Above 14,000ft?
Before you take the controls back you will brief an approach- the ILS to 14R at ORD. While you are briefing the approach, you can have the other guy slow the airplane to 160 kts and set flaps @15. After briefing the approach, take the controls back, (the other guy had it all trimmed up at 160kts) intercept the LOC and G/S and fly it down to a landing (make sure to ask for a landing clearance).
@glide slope alive; call gear down, landing checklist
@one dot; call flaps 25
@glideslope centered; call flaps 30, should be slowed to target (ref + 10kts)
When you cross the marker and you ask for a landing clearance they will say that there is traffic on the runway and to continue the approach. Make sure that you querry them again for landing clearance as you get closer in to the runway. I believe that landing without a clearance is a bust. They do not grade you below 200ft AGL. They will tell you to call for the checklists that you normally call for in the airplane that you currently fly. They will help with the flaps.
At 20 feet wipe the power off. As the mains touch, pull the speed brake, then go into reverse on all 3 engines. Below 80 kts, stow the reversers and get on the brakes to bring the sim to a stop and your done!
After everyone has done the sim, it is time for dinner. We finished the sim at about 10:00pm. Went to the Outback Steakhouse. Finally finished with dinner around 11:00 pm so it was a very long day. Overall it was a very good experience though. I got a phone call the next day for a class date.
Good Luck!!
Show up in Indy the night before the interview- they put us up at the la Quinta right next to the airport. Get up the next morning for the free continental breakfast and check out of the hotel. An ATA van will pick you up around 7:45 to 8:00am. They will take everyone over to ATA headquarters for the interview. There were 7 guys in my group.
At HQ, they take you into a briefing room to start filling out paperwork which includes a 24 month training contract. While doing paperwork- several people came in to talk to us about the company including the Chief Pilot- Dave Lindskoog. All were very friendly and extremely informative. Told all of us that if we were hired we would be going into the 737-800. Each one of us was taken individually to do 2 separate interviews- one with HR and one with a pilot. Everything was pretty straight foreward. Questions they asked were:
HUMAN RESOURCES
Tell me about your flying carreer up to this point?
How do you feel about CRM?
How do you fight complacency on a long flight?
Being a pilot- what kind of things bother you?
Tell me about yourself?
How do you keep yourself motivated?
PILOT INTERVIEW
Give 3 words to describe yourself?
Describe yourself as a person?
Describe yourself as a pilot?
What makes a good Captain?
Why do you want to work for ATA?
What type of decisions are the hardest to make?
What type of things do you do on your days off?
Any incidents or accidents?
Any moving violations?
We finished our interviews and filling out the paperwork around 12:15 or so. They never asked to see our logbooks to verify our flight time against our resume's. They told us to relax and that the job was already 90% ours- we just had to proove ourselves in the 727 sim that evening at Purdue University in Lafayette.
They loaded all of us into the van again to take us to lunch at a buffet restaurant. They invite anyone from the company who wants a free lunch to come along to meet all of the interviewees. There was a couple line captains and a few other management people that showed up. Make conversation, ask intellegent questions and mind your manners! The food is free so eat up and remember they are watching how you behave in a social setting.
After lunch they load everyone back into the van to head up towards Lafayette to check into another hotel. It is about an hour van ride but it gives you a chance to get to know everyone and most importantly to ask the van driver any questions you have about the company. He is not a pilot but knows a lot and also has a lot of say on who gets hired. He knows a lot about the interview process and has gotten a lot of pilots hired at ATA. Don't act like a jerk on the way up to Lafayette- the driver could give you a bad reccomendation. We checked into the hotel and had about 2 hours to rest before the sim. I highly reccomend using these 2 hours to take a nap as it ends up being a long day- we finished at about 11:15 that night.
Change out of your suit into slacks and a polo shirt and they pick you up at about 4:15 to take you over to the sim at Purdue. First they administer a 10 question multiple choice test on approach plates, enroute charts and SIDS- so study those. Know the distance between runway centerline lights (50 feet).
After the test, they give a very thorough brief on what to expext in the sim. The sim ride in is in a 727-100 sim (get some time if you do not have any jet time). They asked all of us if we had a chance to fly the sim ahead of time- be honest with them. The ride is about a half-hour in length.
Make sure to ask for the ATIS and a departure clearance before departing. Give a departure brief (use a format that you use in your current airplane). They will ask you about take-off mins and when do you need a take-off alternate. Know the significance of alternating red & white centline lights, solid red centerline lights, and amber runway edge lights. Don't forget to ask for the landing clearance! The person with the most flight time will go first on the sim- least flight time goes last. If you do not go first then you will be able to get some gouge from the other people as they come out of the sim one at a time.
They have you take-off from 14R @ ORD on a made up SID that requires you to be at 3,000ft until 6 DME from ORD VOR and then climb on course, level off at assigned altitude and maitain at or below 250 knots. Do not bust 250kts.
Once they see that you know how to intercept a radial and that you can maintain an airspeed, they clear you direct to another VOR to hold- your non-flying pilot will copy holding instructions for you. While enroute to the holding fix, they will ask you what type of entry you are going to use. They want to see you transfer controls to the guy in the other seat while you figure out the correct holding entry. They will give you a couple of different holding exercises. Tell them the correct entries and you will not have to actually do the hold but just explain how you will enter it. They will also ask you questions about holding while flying toward the holding fix:
(1) Within how many minutes from the fix do you have to start slowing down to holding speed?
(2) Based on our current groundspeed, what DME will you start slowing for the hold?
(3) What is the max holding speed below 6,000ft, 6,001-14,000ft, and above 14,000ft?
(4) What time should you use for the inbound leg below 14,000ft? Above 14,000ft?
Before you take the controls back you will brief an approach- the ILS to 14R at ORD. While you are briefing the approach, you can have the other guy slow the airplane to 160 kts and set flaps @15. After briefing the approach, take the controls back, (the other guy had it all trimmed up at 160kts) intercept the LOC and G/S and fly it down to a landing (make sure to ask for a landing clearance).
@glide slope alive; call gear down, landing checklist
@one dot; call flaps 25
@glideslope centered; call flaps 30, should be slowed to target (ref + 10kts)
When you cross the marker and you ask for a landing clearance they will say that there is traffic on the runway and to continue the approach. Make sure that you querry them again for landing clearance as you get closer in to the runway. I believe that landing without a clearance is a bust. They do not grade you below 200ft AGL. They will tell you to call for the checklists that you normally call for in the airplane that you currently fly. They will help with the flaps.
At 20 feet wipe the power off. As the mains touch, pull the speed brake, then go into reverse on all 3 engines. Below 80 kts, stow the reversers and get on the brakes to bring the sim to a stop and your done!
After everyone has done the sim, it is time for dinner. We finished the sim at about 10:00pm. Went to the Outback Steakhouse. Finally finished with dinner around 11:00 pm so it was a very long day. Overall it was a very good experience though. I got a phone call the next day for a class date.
Good Luck!!
to get the remaining 16 gouges on American Trans Air.
American Trans Air Pilot Pay Rates
