What's your long term career strategy?

[hopalong]

Net Jets is where I've decided to plant my roots.
That is if they'll have me for the next 30 years. Warren Buffet is a business genuis and we're hoping
he'll live to be a centurion.

The best places to work in aviation are Fedex, UPS,
Southwest and Netjets.

Good luck....

 

[pilotyip]

yea Kinda the seafarer's union

We've had that discussion before but, for the sake of the edification of newcomers, the Dept of Labor did that as a POLITICAL move for both the major airlines AND the USPS lawsuit that was brought by the pilots in the USPS system (I was one of them at the time) that we weren't being given yearly raises commensurate with our position.

Every pilot here doesn't buy it... except for you I think. We all know better. You can train a monkey to fly the airplane, but you can't train the monkey to have the KNOWLEDGE of aerodynamics, aircraft performance, weather prediction, combined human factors that take several "borderline" issues and, when combined, make a particular flight a no-go item in the course of safety, or train the monkey to train another monkey.

It just doesn't pass the "smell" test, buddy.

And I've actually BEEN a Direct-Entry CA three times now, working on a 4th, so you're asking the wrong guy. Yes, OF COURSE, I think it's wrong to skip an F/O who is otherwise qualified to be the Captain at that point.

However, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about this profession should be compensated by a matrix made up of aircraft size / passenger or cargo load / and time in profession. That way, when you left your job for whatever reason, the new employer would be REQUIRED to pay you a base salary commensurate with your experience.

There should also be a NATIONAL seniority list that would REQUIRE a company to hire other company's furloughed pilots as well as upgrade internal qualified candidates before they hired more junior new-hires off the street.

There's a way to make it work, but it's going to take a LOT of work to do so. If you're too lazy to do that work, just say so, man...

Seriously though, you have to admit there's a problem with our current system. It was NEVER intended to watch companies rake in BILLIONS, disseminate the profits among the robber-baron CEO's, then have nothing when times get lean and take it out on the employees.

Until we fix the system to either put a cap on senior management salaries and bonuses, OR require them to share the money EQUALLY among employees should they get a payout, OR figure out a way to protect the employees from bankruptcy-imposed wage cuts and/or furloughs as a result of this industry cycle, this WILL continue.

To think we're not going to be in another down-turn in 5-7 years is naive, at best. How will we protect ourselves? Be part of the solution, don't just tell me WHY something won't work or that it just "has always been that way".

How is US maritime industry doing wiht a single senority list, really good fro a few really bad for everyone else.

 

[willNOTfly4free]

Stop having kids if you can't afford them, stop credit card spending, buy used car(s), don't be stupid.

Check out Dave Ramsey's book "Total Money Makeover." We can all be millionaires with a little know-how early in our careers, regardless of income level.

My plan long term plan consists of staying out of debt, maxing out my retirement accounts every year, maintaining appropriate amounts of insurance, and staying out of debt.

Did I mention staying out of debt?

 

[satpak77]

Check out Dave Ramsey's book "Total Money Makeover." We can all be millionaires with a little know-how early in our careers, regardless of income level.

My plan long term plan consists of staying out of debt, maxing out my retirement accounts every year, maintaining appropriate amounts of insurance, and staying out of debt.

Did I mention staying out of debt?

Good points. It is amazing how much debt Americans are in. Someone on this thread that XXX pilot can own a nice home.

Heck, in todays age of ARM and creative financing, a homeless guy can own the latest spec home. That same guy CAN get financing on a car.

People with the big homes and fancy cars got them via of two things, and nothing else

1. They paid CASH for them
(OR)
2. They FINANCED them.

Period. These days (as discussed above by me), anybody can finance anything. What kinda payment do you want? You bring enough mopes to the table to co-sign and yes you too, can get that fancy car or home.

Stay out of debt.

 

[instructordude]

I think instructor dude is right on this one. Stop having kids if you can't afford them, stop credit card spending, buy used car(s), don't be stupid.

I actually just sold my IROC and got a Hybrid. I'm saving money on gas, helping the environment and driving a Hybrid is the trendy thing these days. Kinda like Al Gore.

 

[Dumb Pilot]

I'm just doing this pilot gig until I get recalled back to the porn industry. great bennies

 

[Lear70]

This discussion has taken a lot of depth here. Thanks for lots of good input.

Now let me ask you this, everyone: The leadership of which company do you think you would go with, if you had a choice?? Why?? Please try to be as objective and specific as possible.

Based purely on leadership?

SWA and CAL in passenger gigs. Mainly because both of them have shown pretty decent respect for their employees.

SWA is obvious but CAL may not be perfect but they made the right moves not to gut their employee's contracts under a faux bankruptcy protection that wasn't necessary like so many other carriers. I respect their management a lot for that.

Carriers to avoid on that same reason? Northwest. Some of the most horrible management-employee relationships of all time. AA, pretty angry pilot group right now for many of the same reasons - management greed at the expense of the employees.

Kind of a crap shoot though, many airlines will change management in the next couple decades and who's to say the next management group doesn't do a 180, for better or worse?

Fractionals: Netjets. Hands-down. Bombardier has no CLUE how to treat their employees, and I don't hear a lot of good things from the other fracs either. I hear nothing but STELLAR things from Netjets employees...

Cargo: FedEx seems to have a pretty good management relationship on and off again with the pilots. UPS not so great, but the contract is so good it almost makes up for it. Don't know enough about ABX to comment...

Yip, that's a good question. I'm certain it's not as bad as painted for the maritime industry, although there's probably nowhere NEAR as much movement and the closure of companies and furloughs back and forth every decade like the aviation industry either.

A single seniority list would suck if there was never any movement, and the airlines are ALWAYS growing,,,

Again, why don't you suggest a FIX for the problem rather than just beating down anyone else's suggestions?

DumbPilot, that's classic. Porno industry.... "Lookin' like SHAFT!"

 

[pilotyip]

lear70, I have stated the fix here many times, all pilots get together start an airline that is everything an airline should be from a pilot's point of view. Then because it is such a great place it will make all the other airlines follow thier lead. It is a very simple solution.

 

[Lear70]

Yes, but not very practical, realistic, nor does it fix the problem.

1. Antitrust issues would never allow just one airline for the entire country. We have to fix this for ALL airline pilots, not just the select few who get to work for "the perfect airline".

2. The problem comes from the airlines currently being allowed to rape, pillage, and run themselves into bankruptcy repeatedly because of it.

3. Starting one airline doesn't do much to help all the other pilots at all the other airlines who just went through their own version of hell on earth (USAirways, UAL, DAL, etc) by having their pensions gutted.

There has to be a multi-level fix to these issues to make this career relatively stable again...

 

[IdRtherBsailing]

I don't know if anyone said it but I think a national seniority list is could solve most of the problems.

 

[Lear70]

I don't know if anyone said it but I think a national seniority list is could solve most of the problems.

Yeah, that's what I was talking about...

It's not easy, would require all the pilots voting it into their existing CBL's, negotiating it into their contracts with each airline, and figuring out implementation trigger points and guidelines.

Airline management would fight it tooth-and-nail because it would cost them millions in additional salaries when another airline closed down or massively furloughed, but I see that as a positive for us, as it would force more companies to put pressure on each other to responsibly manage.

Any solution that benefits us is going to be fought strongly by management, just on the cost basis alone, but that's what we're really talking about... a way not to have to start over every time some fat-cat CEO runs an airline into the ground... again...

 

[pilotyip]

How about regulation?

How about we just go back to 1972 and regulation. Pilots salaries would leap back to where they were during the hey days of airline careers. Of course the cost to the public would go up, but who would care about that? And a lot of passengers would not fly the airlines as much due to cost. But so what. Fewer flights, means fewer airplanes, means fewer jobs. For a few who kept thier Captain's seat it would be great, for rest well tuff luck that is the way the ball rolls. In the end the job is dictated by the customer who buys the tickets. All else is a side show. BTW during regulation military pilots got head of the line privledges for most of the airline jobs.

 

[PCL_128]

How about we just go back to 1972 and regulation.

Sounds good to me.

 

[Lear70]

Actually, a modified re-regulation of the airline industry is EXACTLY what is needed.

This would take the place of legislation aimed at doing the same thing: FORCING airline management to price the product at least break-even for the cost of producing it and force airlines to compete on SERVICE (which was the whole intention of deregulation in the first place), not just on ticket price.

Personally, I have no problem with ticket prices going up $20, $30, or even $50 each. That would more than bring pilot salaries up to a realistic level (the cost to double pilots' salaries was somewhere around $5-10 per ticket, depending on which airline you chose - ALPA study).

Passengers would continue to buy tickets just as much as they do now with that kind of a ticket increase because, quite frankly, it would still make it cheaper than driving in most cases.

Thanks for proposing a halfway good idea, even though I know that's not what you really had in mind...

CEO's have proven they WON'T manage an airline properly (in most cases) over the long-term, so the U.S. government is going to have to step in or pilots are going to have to step up. Pick one.

 

[Pocono Pilot]

... but CAL may not be perfect but they made the right moves not to gut their employee's contracts .......

LOL, what planet are you from? Or better yet, what are you smokin? LOL