I know that your perceived view of a successful career is a matter of timing. After all, we are motivated by seniority, sex and schedule or whatever that guys signature line says that is quoting the AA doctor. I probably have some of the worst timing in the industry. I began my (brief) airline career as the FAA was enforcing crew rest requirements back in 2000. I had a January class date in 2001 at my first regional and I started out making $18/hr. I was so motivated by Kit Darby's admonition to get the hours, get a job, any job, get the 1000 PIC and go to a major that I could and probably did work that logic into just about any discussion of flying imaginable. I had a 4 year degree that was paid for before I started flying and as best as I can tell I spent between $50000 and $60000 to get to the 1000TT/315ME mark that got me hired into a turboprop carrier at the time.
I experienced a few months of relative bliss after new hire training. I was just happy to have a job flying after all and I was just a couple of short years away from my major job (according to Kit). After IOE I had a good schedule, the one they give you so that you get your 100 hours before you have to do training all over. I was paired with a senior captain who was an officer in the union. He spent the entire time telling me how terrible the industry was and how that eventually there would be no mainline jobs, that RJs would be flying everything and no one would be making anything in this business. This was the summer of 2001 remember. I was glad to finish that pairing and went about my business of marking time till my Kit-promised-major job materialized (all the while netting about $900/month after taxes, union dues, uniform expenses and so on).
A brief overview of my history with that regional is as follows: 9/11, two years of status quo contract negotiation, took a few laps around the picket line one cold night in December, "virtual strike" (so I have been PAST a 30 day cooling off period), voluntary furlough, two aircraft qualifications, the promise of new CRJs, said CRJ's being placed at another carrier after bankruptcy filing, mainline bankruptcy, "sham" holding company bankruptcy, having the airframe you are flying completely removed from service (after they were parked in the desert every so often as a bargaining ploy) and getting fed up with it all and just quitting. I never made more than $37,000 a year there and had I not been affected by a seat lock for changing airframes, would have barely been able to hold the left seat for a few months before the bankruptcy and reversal of career progression.
After sitting on the sidelines for about six months, I went to one of the other regional carriers in the family I was once a part of. I felt like my career was never going to be complete without that 4th stripe so I gambled that if I went to this one, I should upgrade in about a year. As things go, I was awarded Captain two months after I started and ironically that was the day before my FO check ride. Imagine how foolish I would have felt had I "had a bad day" and failed that one huh? I qualified as an FO, flew two trips off OE and then began Captain class with about 50 hours total in the plane.
In the mid 90s there was another popular message board, before FI. Same stuff, probably some of the same people as well. There was an open letter posted on the page from what was purported to be a senior pilot. It was a lament about how fast hiring and subsequent upgrades were moving. It included a reference to guys upgrading so fast that they have never seen a winter in a plane period, and now their first one could be in the left seat with people in the back. Since I was a 5+ year FO and had seen at least 4 midwest winters from the right seat of two different planes, I still worried that upgrading with such low time in a plane was going to be a challenge but believed that I had a well of experience to draw from. Considering that I went through a training department that is notorious for failures and having relatively no experience with the plane or the company, I got all "A's" in training, passed my type on the first attempt with one of the most feared APDs and went out on OE with my 4th stripe weighing heavily on my shoulder.
What I could write about what I thought being a captain would be like, and the reality of being a captain is probably for another post. If you are an FO and you sit in your seat and smile while privately shaking your fists at the sky about why you haven't upgraded yet, when you do PM me and tell me how your first couple of months go. Those who have sat in the left seat know what I am talking about. It is as close as I will ever get to echoing the sentiments in that senior captains lament. And as a side note, this past winter was the 8th snowiest winter in measured Michigan history, and my first one as a captain.
So, you say, the title of your post was "don't tell me you do this job for money" right. Ok, I will start making my point. I spent some time with a CPI calculator I found online. It allows you put historical dollars in and find out their buying power in todays dollars. I had heard off and on through union communications the various effects of a past due contract on the buying power of your past due per hour rates but when you are their, this means nothing unless you get a new contract or quit. A couple of months ago, I really looked at the big picture and decided that since Age 65 was now a reality, that Kit had been lying to me just to get my money way back then, that commuting to sit reserve and never breaking contract minimum pay, all the health concerns and everything else just wasn't worth it. I figured I needed to earn $37000 in the real world to make the same impact I made financially at the approximately $48000 I was making as a JUNIOR captain. There was at the time an ad in my local paper for a lumber truck driver and the salary listed was $37000. The Social Security Administration has probably sent you the same thing they sent me, a historical earnings statement that shows your estimated benefit if you were to start drawing today. I look at mine when it says I made in the mid-40's ten years ago and run that through the CPI adjuster and see that it is like earning $56,000 in today's dollars. I also see that in 2000, I earned $8000. Yup, my vow of poverty began that year when I was a CFI.
I have had an article on my desk for some time now. It is from the March 1984 issue of Flying magazine. The article is about a company that flew checks in 210s. The pay was between $1800 and $2000 per month. Using the CPI calculator, in todays dollars that would be like earning $50000. That is what I was making flying a CRJ full of people into the shortest possible runways with the most snow you could be dispatched with and the lowest time FOs ALLOWED BY LAW!
This post may be cathartic. I am comfortable with my decision to leave the airline world. About the only thing I miss are the pretty sun rises. If I made one mistake though, it would be in thinking that the pie in sky dream sold by Kit Darby and now the glossy ads saying you could be flying a regional jet in as little as 6 months were true. Had I known the reality of it, the testing/training/checkride, low pay, reality of commuting, lack of career progression whether caused by the economy of ALPA policies, management harassment, crew scheduling abuse, poor diet.............you get the picture. Maybe I would have never done it.
It is through this kind of filter that I now sit and read posts. I wonder why in the world you do it. What say you?
I experienced a few months of relative bliss after new hire training. I was just happy to have a job flying after all and I was just a couple of short years away from my major job (according to Kit). After IOE I had a good schedule, the one they give you so that you get your 100 hours before you have to do training all over. I was paired with a senior captain who was an officer in the union. He spent the entire time telling me how terrible the industry was and how that eventually there would be no mainline jobs, that RJs would be flying everything and no one would be making anything in this business. This was the summer of 2001 remember. I was glad to finish that pairing and went about my business of marking time till my Kit-promised-major job materialized (all the while netting about $900/month after taxes, union dues, uniform expenses and so on).
A brief overview of my history with that regional is as follows: 9/11, two years of status quo contract negotiation, took a few laps around the picket line one cold night in December, "virtual strike" (so I have been PAST a 30 day cooling off period), voluntary furlough, two aircraft qualifications, the promise of new CRJs, said CRJ's being placed at another carrier after bankruptcy filing, mainline bankruptcy, "sham" holding company bankruptcy, having the airframe you are flying completely removed from service (after they were parked in the desert every so often as a bargaining ploy) and getting fed up with it all and just quitting. I never made more than $37,000 a year there and had I not been affected by a seat lock for changing airframes, would have barely been able to hold the left seat for a few months before the bankruptcy and reversal of career progression.
After sitting on the sidelines for about six months, I went to one of the other regional carriers in the family I was once a part of. I felt like my career was never going to be complete without that 4th stripe so I gambled that if I went to this one, I should upgrade in about a year. As things go, I was awarded Captain two months after I started and ironically that was the day before my FO check ride. Imagine how foolish I would have felt had I "had a bad day" and failed that one huh? I qualified as an FO, flew two trips off OE and then began Captain class with about 50 hours total in the plane.
In the mid 90s there was another popular message board, before FI. Same stuff, probably some of the same people as well. There was an open letter posted on the page from what was purported to be a senior pilot. It was a lament about how fast hiring and subsequent upgrades were moving. It included a reference to guys upgrading so fast that they have never seen a winter in a plane period, and now their first one could be in the left seat with people in the back. Since I was a 5+ year FO and had seen at least 4 midwest winters from the right seat of two different planes, I still worried that upgrading with such low time in a plane was going to be a challenge but believed that I had a well of experience to draw from. Considering that I went through a training department that is notorious for failures and having relatively no experience with the plane or the company, I got all "A's" in training, passed my type on the first attempt with one of the most feared APDs and went out on OE with my 4th stripe weighing heavily on my shoulder.
What I could write about what I thought being a captain would be like, and the reality of being a captain is probably for another post. If you are an FO and you sit in your seat and smile while privately shaking your fists at the sky about why you haven't upgraded yet, when you do PM me and tell me how your first couple of months go. Those who have sat in the left seat know what I am talking about. It is as close as I will ever get to echoing the sentiments in that senior captains lament. And as a side note, this past winter was the 8th snowiest winter in measured Michigan history, and my first one as a captain.
So, you say, the title of your post was "don't tell me you do this job for money" right. Ok, I will start making my point. I spent some time with a CPI calculator I found online. It allows you put historical dollars in and find out their buying power in todays dollars. I had heard off and on through union communications the various effects of a past due contract on the buying power of your past due per hour rates but when you are their, this means nothing unless you get a new contract or quit. A couple of months ago, I really looked at the big picture and decided that since Age 65 was now a reality, that Kit had been lying to me just to get my money way back then, that commuting to sit reserve and never breaking contract minimum pay, all the health concerns and everything else just wasn't worth it. I figured I needed to earn $37000 in the real world to make the same impact I made financially at the approximately $48000 I was making as a JUNIOR captain. There was at the time an ad in my local paper for a lumber truck driver and the salary listed was $37000. The Social Security Administration has probably sent you the same thing they sent me, a historical earnings statement that shows your estimated benefit if you were to start drawing today. I look at mine when it says I made in the mid-40's ten years ago and run that through the CPI adjuster and see that it is like earning $56,000 in today's dollars. I also see that in 2000, I earned $8000. Yup, my vow of poverty began that year when I was a CFI.
I have had an article on my desk for some time now. It is from the March 1984 issue of Flying magazine. The article is about a company that flew checks in 210s. The pay was between $1800 and $2000 per month. Using the CPI calculator, in todays dollars that would be like earning $50000. That is what I was making flying a CRJ full of people into the shortest possible runways with the most snow you could be dispatched with and the lowest time FOs ALLOWED BY LAW!
This post may be cathartic. I am comfortable with my decision to leave the airline world. About the only thing I miss are the pretty sun rises. If I made one mistake though, it would be in thinking that the pie in sky dream sold by Kit Darby and now the glossy ads saying you could be flying a regional jet in as little as 6 months were true. Had I known the reality of it, the testing/training/checkride, low pay, reality of commuting, lack of career progression whether caused by the economy of ALPA policies, management harassment, crew scheduling abuse, poor diet.............you get the picture. Maybe I would have never done it.
It is through this kind of filter that I now sit and read posts. I wonder why in the world you do it. What say you?
