Hey InstructorDude (Future Airline Pilot),
I'm not ruining anything. And no, I would not be interested in making only 80K at Virgin. 100K and we got a deal though. That is some serious cash.
I'm making $155,000 plus 10% bonus at my current (non-pilot) job and TRUST me.. it's not that serious.. I've got a middle/upper middle class home in Phoenix, a wife and two little kids.. between their expenses, the mortgage, and the car payment, I've got hardly $1000 per month to save for the day I retire.
$100K/yr works out to (after taxes) about $6200/month.. with the average home costing $500-600K in most parts of the country where you don't get lynched or mugged going outside, and rates at 6.5% and climbing, you're looking at $3000/month with 20% down, if you've only got 5% down, now you're well north of $3500/mo for your mortgage.. add to that a $500/600 month car payment (typical $30K car).. insurance, bills, unexpected expenses, food, etc... you're not at $6000/mo... this is before the vacation, or private school for you kid who's too smart for the local public schools..
And you think flying a $230M 747 20+ days a month is worth that? I've got a friend who's a bottom dweller corporate lawyer for U-Haul and he pulls down $150,000 salary, and another friend who's a computer engineer (low level), and he's drawing $165,000 working as a project engineer at Intel. I'm making my money working less than 40/hrs a week managing commercial real estate.. get real dude... $100K a year is lower middle class wages these days.. And forget about all of that if you're living in California, NY, NJ or any other coastal major cities!
If your attitude is typical of the "future" airline pilots, they maybe I need to forget about returning to American...