How true is nepotism in the airline industry, really?

It was so successful for me I ended up at a different legacy! /s But honestly, the nuance there is important. I will be the first to tell you it made my path easier but not in the way people generally think. I didn’t have a tenth of an hour of flight time, or any special access to a plane or a DPE. Many of the “advantages” people talk about are mostly just privilege and wealth, and while it was a middle class upbringing there’s fewer airline pilots than one might think who fit that category. Particularly over the lost decade, the idea that a lot of airline pilots could afford to fly for fun on the side wasn’t really a thing. At the end of the day, while it does still happen, these aren’t “I know a guy” airlines any more, and a 17k+ pilot legacy doesn’t hire pilots that way. Despite being the son of a line check pilot and plenty of internal recommendations it didn’t matter because hiring was told not to hire from a particular regional to protect their staffing. And I’m glad for how it turned out, I found an airline with a culture I enjoy more and a hell of a lot more seniority progression. Now, where it does absolutely make a difference is in what makes someone a competitive candidate. I can definitely think of examples where this wasn’t the case, but growing up in a household with a pilot parent does help you be the type of person airlines want to hire. If you are interested in being a pilot as a kid, the “what happened at work, honey” conversations at the dinner table start to fill in what life looks like and what decisions pilots actually make. In a relatively straightforward way, those conversations as a young kid become an introduction to the world of “Tell Me About A Time”. Once I went to college, the simple fact that I had someone I could pick up and call when something went wrong and have them understand made a massive difference. Having the ability to learn about someone’s path, the mistakes they made or what they did right, makes it way easier to smooth out the path to being a pilot. Maybe most importantly, being introduced to the idea of what seniority is made a huge difference. I graduated early and flew as much as I could because I knew what being hired young meant, while my peers in college might have not minded taking a semester off flying or not staying for the summers. So yes, being the child of an airline pilot absolutely 110% makes it easier, but the reality is it doesn’t have to be such a wide disparity. The difference wasn’t that my dad got me flight hours (the only times I’ve been in a small plane with him I was the one renting), or that he could pull out the checkbook (being in a large, single-income family on an FO pay scale meant I went to a state university on student loans for all my flying), or that he could give me a magical letter of recommendation (I ended up at a different legacy). The difference was I saw what the job looked like from when I was a little kid, and when I said I wanted to be a pilot I had someone say “well, okay, here’s what I did…” That was mentorship, and it doesn’t have to be from a parent. I got involved with the ALPA mentorship program at my regional and ended up as the Vice-Chair. Most fun I had at the regionals, and a huge help for legacy interviews. Take the time to keep in touch with the people you meet along the way. I still talk to most of my flight students who made it beyond the instrument rating. There are tons of volunteer opportunities to meet people as you move forward in flying. You don’t need to be a 25 year legacy captain to make impact on someone, and if nothing else, try to save the next guy from the mistakes you made.