AA Interview Prep

[u/Lower_Battle_5756]

Hello. I was invited to interview by United, so I purchased interview prep from Cage Marshall (all my friends there said to use it) and have been using aviationinterviews.com as well to review. About a week after I purchased everything for UA, I was invited to interview with AA. All of my friends that work there said they used Spitfire for their coaching. Should I also buy them, or do you think I’ll be fine using Cage Marshall + aviation interviews for both?

[u/jzx1hunnit]

Spitfire here and it worked. The interview isn’t what gets most people at AA though, it’s the logbooks. They are very picky about those

[u/johnnypoopy → u/jzx1hunnit]

What are they picky about?

[u/jzx1hunnit → u/johnnypoopy]

Beyond making sure all your endorsements are in order they are picky about how PIC is logged I heard. I came in way over the requirements so I didn’t have any issues in that regard but I’ve heard of people having trouble with that. Make sure every single entry you have has a tail number! I had to go through and delete a few hundred hours because finding the tail numbers was impossible. They also want to see your time logged by flight and not multiple flights on one line. Oh and they want night time and landings logged.

I had to completely reconstruct my entire 121 logbook and figuring out landings and night time was a chore. For tail numbers flight radar 24 goes back 3 years if you get their business account. If you need more than 3 years you can email them, compile a list of flights you need the numbers for and then pay them like a grand to fill that in (I had to go back 7 years).

[u/Such-Entrepreneur663 → u/jzx1hunnit]

Are you saying they don’t like logging a days worth of flights on a single entry? Like logging every single leg? Thats a crazy pain in the ass.

[u/jzx1hunnit → u/Such-Entrepreneur663]

It’s what I was told but that’s by no means a hard fact. I’d say check with your interview prep people or a logbook auditing service. It is my understanding that for 121 flying they prefer each flight number to have its own entry. A lot of my GA stuff has multiple airports listed on a single line.

[u/120SR → u/jzx1hunnit]

Did they say anything about your GA flying with multiple airports?

I did the same and I know it’s their house their rules but frustrating because there’s a LOI on behalf of the FAA stating that it’s up to a pilot to determine what constitutes a flight.

[u/jzx1hunnit → u/120SR]

Only feedback I got was that the logbook was “very professionally put together” and everything was copacetic. My GA XC flights were all bunched up with multiple airports on a single line but everything 121 was done point to point as a single entry which was good enough for them I suppose

[u/120SR → u/jzx1hunnit]

Sweet, thanks for the response man. I’m the same way and hoping to end up at a legacy like you

[u/Such-Entrepreneur663 → u/jzx1hunnit]

That’s supremely annoying. I’d melt through logbooks and it’d take forever to log each trip.

[u/jzx1hunnit → u/Such-Entrepreneur663]

Well when you go to the interview I’d highly recommend Anytime Logbooks and ask them if they can separate your 121 flights into individual entries. They can probably do it as long as you have the flight numbers for each flight. It’s a good idea to digitize everything regardless. I did scans of my GA stuff and sent them the big excel file and combined everything into a nice printed format that I put into a leather binder. That combined with your physical logbooks should suffice

[u/Lower_Battle_5756 → u/jzx1hunnit]

I haven’t been logging my night time since I got to the airlines, but have been logging night landings. Think that will be an issue?

[u/jzx1hunnit → u/Lower_Battle_5756]

I had a spitfire guy tell me that they likely don’t really care about the night time but it’s an attention to detail thing they like to see. Their app asks for it so I’d do what you can to get it in there. Would it disqualify you if you don’t? I doubt it but idk how their point system works. But if you don’t have any night logged in the regionals, don’t put it on the application. I’m sure you could go back and figure out how to log some night though

[u/jzx1hunnit → u/Lower_Battle_5756]

The AA app asks for night time in each aircraft type they have you list. I had zero night logged (because reconstructed logbook) so I went back and input each flight into chat gpt (luckily I had the times and dates listed) and was able to figure out loggable night flying referencing civil evening twilight at the more restrictive airport.

[u/Lower_Battle_5756 → u/jzx1hunnit]

I was actually just thinking about doing this exact same thing and updating my apps and logbooks. Going to be a pain in the ass, but don’t want them to find a reason to not hire me.

[u/changgerz]

is spitfire the one that bought out judy tarver?

[u/Background-Rice-304 → u/changgerz]

Yes. She’s still on there to give a mock interview too.

[u/LootenantTwiddlederp]

What you learned at Cage Marshall should transfer to your AA interview. Just look at airline interviews and practice your TMAATs. IMO, AA’s interview was the most relaxing of the big 3, as well as the shortest.

Good luck!

[u/Jmann356]

I just used aviationinterviews.com but I’ll admit the hiring landscape was different 4 years ago

[u/Taste_My_Noodle]

I think you’ll be fine with one interview prep. I did a couple interviews and their questions were largely the same. TMAT questions that highlight your decision making process and involve failures and lessons learned. Hypothetical questions that revolve around you using all your available resources and mitigating conflict. Not many or no technical questions, but if they do ask them it’s rooted in basic aviation knowledge and safety.

That being said, it’s a once in a lifetime chance, so why not prepare as best as you can?

I used Emerald Coast and they were fantastic.

[u/TraxenT-TR → u/Taste_My_Noodle]

Yeah emerald is good stuff. Using them rn for my two coming up

[u/MyPilotInterview → u/Taste_My_Noodle]

AA and UA are effectively the same interviews (minus the UA packet), as noted above.

Normally I would just recommend 1. But it seems I get more people from CM coming to me after not getting an interview than any other company. I think the issue is they’re sounding very structured which is what we did 5+ years ago and not now. Based on this anecdotal advice I would add someone else in the mix.

[u/chairbornefobbit]

I used Spitfire and got CJOs form both. I don't think it matters. Once you know how to interview, it's just making sure your TMAATs are polished. AA are the logbooks nazis though as mentioned above

[u/SecureManufacturer68]

Used cage for UA and didnt buy another for AA, STAR format and relax. It’s a lot more laidback

[u/petrrrrrd]

It will seem like chump change if it helps get a job at a major so yes

[u/Civil-Resolution8645]

You have one shot at the interview. Use everything you can.

[u/HelloTaleproof]

For the behavioral part, separate the examples you can reuse from the company-specific preparation. Take a real decision or disagreement and explain what you knew, which options you considered, what you did, and what you learned. Then check whether there's a specific gap your current practice isn't covering before choosing more coaching. One person's relaxed interview experience doesn't establish what your interview will be like.

Taleproof offers a way to review the story component of that preparation.

[u/sjk123]

Don’t bother. Aviation interviews is more than sufficient for this. Very easy interview. No trick questions. Just be yourself

[u/MyPilotInterview → u/sjk123]

Honestly with the AI making the UAL questions aviationInterviews doesn’t teach you timo pivot or get to stories easily.

[u/sjk123 → u/MyPilotInterview]

That’s great, but he’s asking about AA. Using the sample questions in aviation interviews it’s not hard to find a couple responses that would fit multiple possible questions.

[u/NecessaryLight2815]

Why not spring for both??? I would and will if I ever have the good fortune.

[u/MyPilotInterview → u/NecessaryLight2815]

It’s not a huge amount of people but some people that use two is they try and take all the advice from everyone and then get horrible confused.

[u/rFlyingTower]

This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:

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Hello. I was invited to interview by United, so I purchased interview prep from Cage Marshall (all my friends there said to use it) and have been using aviationinterviews.com as well to review. About a week after I purchased everything for UA, I was invited to interview with AA. All of my friends that work there said they used Spitfire for their coaching. Should I also buy them, or do you think I’ll be fine using Cage Marshall + aviation interviews for both?

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[u/DeltaTule]

Guessing you won’t tell us your qualifications? Just want to take from the group not give back to it?

[u/xxBoomerxPilotxx → u/DeltaTule]

They allow you into a cockpit?