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OUPilot01

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 10, 2007
Posts
52
Seeing the continual degradation of the airline career including pay, benefits and prestige. Along with main line flying becoming increasing out sourced to the lowest bidder. Would you still have invested all the time and money into aviation, if the salary of a regional captain was the most you would ever make as a pilot. Hypothetically speaking if there was no majors (SWA, FEDEX, Delta....ect) and the highest paid pilots made $60-70 bucks and hour.

I have always wondered how many would still fly as a career if the most you would top out at is regional captain pay. .
 
I would not.

Given the technical demands and skills required, level of responsilbility, time/resources required to get to that level of aviation, and the sacrifices required in terms of time away from home/demands of family life/erratic schedule, the airline career, whether at a major or regional airline, is well deserving of premium pay.

I've taken a long-term leave of absence from my job at a major primarily due to the uneven trade off between pay/time away from home.
 
booo hoooo

you guys got trained for a career that has stunk since........ I'm going to say the 1980s. So if its a revelation that pilots work lots of hours for not much pay you are an idiot.

I enjoyed my training but figured out around the age of 21 that it wasn't going to be much of a job.

Sigh.... At least I have high speed internet and two giant monitors at my desk. And I have enough $$ to fly around for fun.
 
I have to agree with you. In just the past ten years I have been doing this there has been a drastically different shift in how long you are at a regional. Flight schools need to be telling prospective students the reality of the career. It astounds me how many people just starting off in this career keep pointing to the majors as what they expect to be making after a "couple" years at a regional. Sadly based off the current trend of the industry you may very well spend close to half your career at a regional. Going to the majors is like playing musical chairs every year there is more and more participants while someone keeps taking away the chairs.
 
Flight schools are still telling the lie of the "Vietnam era" mass exodus of pilots and basically lying to fill the training class. I tell prospective students to stay away. This industry is dead, 50-100K AYFC??
 
cynic said:
booo hoooo

you guys got trained for a career that has stunk since........ I'm going to say the 1980s. So if its a revelation that pilots work lots of hours for not much pay you are an idiot.

I enjoyed my training but figured out around the age of 21 that it wasn't going to be much of a job.

Sigh.... At least I have high speed internet and two giant monitors at my desk. And I have enough $$ to fly around for fun.
Click to expand...

Whoopty dooo... Good for you.

Go back to your Flight Sim game and leave the career talk to the guys who are doing it. This here is man talk... No place for you in it.

But seriously, if you get off by jumping on FI and patting yourself on the back for making a "shrewd" career decision at 21, good for you. There is nothing here but bad luck and poor timing. If all of your buddies were knocking down 6 figures at FedEx than your prospective might be different. Or maybe not. Either way, you really have no place in this thread since you pussed out and never gave the career a real shot.

Now get back to those two killer computer screens doing whatever the hell it is you do.
 
Metro752 said:
Yeah, 4 more years and there will be an exodus.

Hang on!
Click to expand...

Completely agree. We saw exactly what was starting to happen before the FAA dropped the age 65 bomb and gas prices skyrocketed. The regionals had dropped minimums to the bare minimums and still couldn't get enough people. 4 more years and it will start all over again.

As far as doing it all over again I absolutely would. No doubt about it. The regionals is a 100k/yr job after 10 years. If you can't live comfortably on that, better start working on your basketball, acting, or rap skills.......
 
I spent yesterday trying to complete 10 hours of errands in 5 hours.
After filing a complaint with my wife. She explained, every day, 5 days a week, 351 days per year is like that for her.
For me, flying airplanes for a living isn't so bad.
 
Last edited:
Yes and no.

Getting my ratings is one thing that I do not regret, and never will. I love flying, so I can't regret that. However, I don't know if I really understood the nature of the "regional" job--namely just how much time I would be gone. I enjoy the flying a great deal, and quite frankly it's the best job I've had so far, but all those 4-day trips begin to take their toll.

But then again, I don't know if I would have bothered to get my ratings if I wasn't planning on a regional job. I think the one thing that I would have done differently would be to finish a degree in something other than aviation--something I will soon remedy, but it would have been nice to have done it already.

In summary, I'll always be glad I got the ratings, but the shine has definitely come off the airline career.

-Goose
 
I've been flying pro for about 2 years now and I'm still not really sure if I'm at that state where being a pilot is paying me vs me paying to be a pilot. I'm hopping that very soon I'll be able to afford something more than ramen. Stay away, is what I say.
 
CX880 said:
I've been flying pro for about 2 years now and I'm still not really sure if I'm at that state where being a pilot is paying me vs me paying to be a pilot. I'm hopping that very soon I'll be able to afford something more than ramen. Stay away, is what I say.
Click to expand...

2 years? C'mon you've gotta do better than that. Most pilots flight instruct for more than 2 years making less than $15K/yr.
Most major airline captains over the age of 40 had to work for close to 10 years before they could even get hired by a regional airline. Back in the early 90's the hiring mins for American Eagle were 9000+ hrs TT.

Realistically it won't start paying you back for 5-7 years minimum.
 
777forever said:
The regionals is a 100k/yr job after 10 years.
Click to expand...
That's a big roll of the dice. To put it more accurately: The regionals MIGHT be a $100k/yr job (If you're airlines doesn't go under, if you don't get furloughed, if your pilot group doesn't take pay cust, if...if...if...)
 
The majority of my friends with professional degrees making six figures spent close to the same that I did on their schooling. (doctor, lawyer, MBA, Phd) Those that make that kind of coin in sales or other jobs with only a bach. deg. work their assses off to get that pay. It is easily conceivable that a regional captain will make six figures WITH 16,17 days off per month. ALL of my friends are flabbergasted at that. Throw in the travel bennies and the fact that my job ENDS the second I am released...i'd sign up all over again.

Well, we all know that the majors gave up on scope over 15 years ago allowing the creation/growth of the "regional" airline. Now the "regional/national" airlines fly their old routes on smaller, more efficient planes at a fraction of the pay because of their desire to hang on to the very top tier of pay at the expense of entry level jobs at the legacy carriers.

Now they regret it and glare at the kids flying LAX-SEA on a 70 seater. They are suffering now because of their lack of foresight and greed. Now they have to fly til 65 to make up for it all.

You can be greedy and overplay your aces and get busted, or you can value bet and stay in it for the long haul. Now they are on the street (without pension/ taking pay cuts/ giving up bennies...etc.) because of their poor decisions years ago.

W
 
CopilotDoug said:
That's a big roll of the dice. To put it more accurately: The regionals MIGHT be a $100k/yr job (If you're airlines doesn't go under, if you don't get furloughed, if your pilot group doesn't take pay cust, if...if...if...)
Click to expand...


I don't know why you guys have your bar set so low. You do realize that there are airline jobs that pay OVER $100K/yr after the FIRST year?
 
When I sat down with the head of the aviation program I was going to attend he basically told me there were no jobs in aviation and that my chances of flying for a major carrier were nil. He certainly didn't sugarcoat what I was getting into. Later the aviation club brought in a guy by the name of Wayne Philips to talk to us about flying for a career. He stood up there and proceeded to tell us that most of us would never fly for a major airline. There was a lot of gloom and doom in his presentation. Needless to say I had pretty low expectations for my career. But I pressed on because flying and airplanes had been a passion of mine for as long as I could remember. I've had some really good luck in my career and while I don't fly for a major airline and don't know if I ever will, I make a decent living flying airplanes. That's what I wanted all along.
 
Dubya said:
The majority of my friends with professional degrees making six figures spent close to the same that I did on their schooling. (doctor, lawyer, MBA, Phd) Those that make that kind of coin in sales or other jobs with only a bach. deg. work their assses off to get that pay. It is easily conceivable that a regional captain will make six figures WITH 16,17 days off per month. ALL of my friends are flabbergasted at that. Throw in the travel bennies and the fact that my job ENDS the second I am released...i'd sign up all over again.
Click to expand...
Some BIG differences:
-They can hit the $100k mark much faster
-They start over at a new job, they can negotiate higher pay.
-Total lack of control over career progression as a pilot: You have to roll with the punches. In other jobs, You can set the tempo.
 
OUPilot01 said:
Hypothetically speaking if there was no majors (SWA, FEDEX, Delta....ect) and the highest paid pilots made $60-70 bucks and hour.

I have always wondered how many would still fly as a career if the most you would top out at is regional captain pay. .
Click to expand...
Absolutely. I like making more, but even if I had stayed at the regional, 80K for working 13-14 days a month in a nice aircraft is not a bad deal.

This job is incredibly easy. It's like getting paid money for enjoying a hobby.
 
CopilotDoug said:
Some BIG differences:
-They can hit the $100k mark much faster
Working 10 times harder and much more and longer hours.
-They start over at a new job, they can negotiate higher pay.
This MIGHT work in prosperous times and in SPECIFIC job arenas.

-Total lack of control over career progression as a pilot: You have to roll with the punches. In other jobs, You can set the tempo.
Click to expand...
Really? Total lack of control? Come on.

Not such BIG differences after all.

W
 
In a second, the airlines are not the end all be all, I fly corporate now after a few years at the regionals and I really love my job.
 

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