Would an airline employer or care much if my test scores were in the 80s instead of the 90s,?

For the instrument test or the commercial test, etc

No, they don't even see the results of your FAA tests.
But if that's the best you can do, it does not bode well for your career. An ATP or even a type certificate is more rigorous that the commercial test. And airline pilots under go recurring training, the airline will know how you do in that training.

No, but they WOULD care that you are incapable of forming a complete and cognizant sentence in the ENGLISH language. Come back when you can do that.

You would be at the bottom of the list of candidates behind all the people with higher scores. Perhaps you can do public address announcements.

No. They do not look at test scores. All they look at is pass or fail. Besides that, by the trime you'd be qualified to apply to an airline it would be a moot point. You are NOT going to get hired by an airline straight out of flight school or very soon thereafter.

Pass/fail and currency, is all that is considered.

Yes. They take best qualified, first. If competition tough, you would not get it. If lotsa openings and you were about average with most, good chance.

70 or better is Pass; 90 or better is Hired.

Absolutely not, as was mentioned by other pilots here. Airlines have too much to do to be conniving enough to ask for your practical and written scores from training pants phases of your pilot career. They expect that you're able to fly to ATP standards, and whatever training issues you may have had as a young wee pilot have been addressed and fixed, since you're at their door asking for a job. Airlines are going to be far more interested in your training and performance as a working commercial pilot, since you can expect to spend 5-10 years from the day "Commercial Pilot Certificate" arrives in the mail flying the typical beat… Instructing, flying night freight, flying charters, tossing people with parachutes out of a plane they don't really deserve to ride in, etc. You will have had some time working for a Part 135 airline/operator, and that means you will be experienced with initial and recurrency training, pass FAR 135 checkrides, pass line checks, and possibly upgrades. You will have had some advanced systems training in there somewhere, and when flying the line, you'll have to pay a lot more attention to logging both your flying time and aircraft time. Those are the details a Part 121 "airline" airline are going to be interested in, and ask you about AT LENGTH in a job interview.

Add Comment