You Won't Get This Information Anywhere Else! Straight Talk from American Airlines Leadership.
Ready 4 Pushback
Nik Fialka
4.8 • 716 Ratings
🗓️ 4 August 2025
⏱️ 59 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Nik Fialka gets an exclusive interview with Alan Johnson, VP of Operations, and Dina Payne, Senior Manager of Pilot Hiring at American Airlines, for a conversation centered on the AA hiring process—packed with insights valuable to anyone pursuing a career at a major airline.
Together, they walk through what makes a standout application and resume, how to show up prepared for your interview, and what to expect during training once you're hired. They also dive into why professionalism, attitude, and cultural fit matter just as much as flight time—and how every interaction with the company can influence your path. Whether you're just getting started or looking to move up to a legacy carrier, this episode offers practical advice straight from the decision-makers at American Airlines.
What You'll Learn:
What American Airlines looks for in pilot candidates beyond flight hours
How to build a clean, complete application that gets noticed
Common resume mistakes and how to avoid them
Why professional presence and preparation matter at conferences and interviews
What the training pipeline looks like once you’re hired
The role of servant leadership in the cockpit and on the ramp
How authenticity and attitude play into hiring decisions
Why culture and character matter just as much as qualifications
How American’s values—Safety, Care, Dependability, Efficiency—guide everything they do
CONNECT WITH US
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If you want to recommend someone to guest on the show, email Nik at [email protected], and if you need a professional pilot resume, go to www.spitfireelite.com/podcast/ for FREE templates!Â
SPONSOR
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It all started as a spark. Maybe it was the sound of jets racing across the sky. |
| 0:13.5 | Or the feeling of your heart racing as you watch Crop Duster flying low and slow. |
| 0:19.9 | Even then, you knew you were meant to fly. For pilots, it's more than |
| 0:25.3 | just a job. It's a calling. The early mornings, the long hours, the relentless training, you didn't |
| 0:33.1 | do it for the money. You did it for that moment. That moment when the wheels lift off and the earth |
| 0:38.7 | falls away beneath you. But flying is just the beginning. The journey to your dream job takes |
| 0:44.7 | more than just skill in the sky. It takes strategy on the ground and a lifetime of learning. |
| 0:51.0 | Most pilots don't understand what career opportunities are available in the world of aviation. |
| 0:57.0 | Learn how to go from good to great, from flight school to regional to major, and from hopeful to hired. |
| 1:05.0 | Whether you're sharpening your skills, building your resume, or preparing for that big interview, |
| 1:10.0 | this is where pilots come to level up. |
| 1:13.2 | Let's get ready for pushback. |
| 1:15.3 | Here's your host and my dad, Nick Fialca. |
| 1:19.3 | Hey, pilot. |
| 1:21.8 | Welcome back to Ready for Pushback. |
| 1:23.7 | I'm Nick Fialca, and today I have two special guests. |
| 1:26.7 | We're going to be live tonight |
| 1:27.5 | answering your questions. I have Ms. Dina Payne, the senior manager of pilot hiring at American Airlines, |
| 1:35.5 | and I have the vice president of operations Alan Johnson with me today. And now that I've gotten |
| 1:40.3 | through this intro, we're just going to roll right into it. I've got a list of questions I'm going to ask, and I've got a bunch of questions that you guys already signed up to ask tonight. So I've got those pre-ready, and we're going to go through them. Thanks for joining us tonight. We're excited to have you. This is going to be a great episode, so let's get started. All right. Well, Alan, thank you for joining us. Dina, thank you for being here. |
| 2:02.4 | They say it. Yeah, it's a privilege, right? What an opportunity. This is super cool for me. |
| 2:07.4 | First off, you are an Army helicopter pilot. I am. You are, you and I think, are the only |
... |
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