AOPA article; "The glory days are over"

[Rez O. Lewshun]

See my note in what are the regionals doing wrong.

The bottom line is when VLJ's start coming on line, people are going to say, I could take off my shoes, stand in line for 2 hours, deal with people who don't give a crap, or I can sign up for a fractional VLJ, and say to heck with the airlines.
I'm betting, and so is an industry, that lots of people will say that, and then the big airlines are going to be a giant sucking sound. Kind of like Freddie Laker, and Laker Express.

I agree... In addition, if the pilots are not careful and "management" is successful, the definition of these VLJ's will not be "professional".

The VLJ pilots will be the taxi cab caliber pilots.......

 

[pilotyip]

If management is successful, pilots have jobs.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

If management is successful, pilots have jobs.

True.... McDonalds is sucessful and they have lots of jobs to offer.... but alot less careers...

 

[pilotyip]

Women? Management?

Management are like women, can't live with'em, can't live without'em. Divorces are follwed by more marriages. BTW the glory days are not gone, this is still a fantastic carrer where else can a guy without a college degree school grad have a shot at making $100K/yr doing something he likes. Not many places I know of.

 

[Goose Egg]

He closes with:

"I frequently am asked for advice about becoming an airline pilot. The best advice I can offer those determined to endure the rigorous hardships often required is to simultaneously develop a sideline vocation that can be used in case of emergency. A pilot should never get into a position that is totally dependent on income from an airline... Does the end justify the means? Does becoming a captain for a major airline justify all that must be endured to get there? Perhaps, but surviving long enough to get there is the problem."

I think Mr. Schiff has a good point. In the modern airline industry, "it's a race to the bottom," "the glory days are over..." and so on and so forth ad nauseum. The job is not like it was for him, and it never will be again. We know. We knew it a long time ago.

The rather glaring point that Barry fails to acknowledge is that not all of us consider a job at a major the pinnacle of success. In fact, he is saying in essence, "The only job worth having in aviation is being a major airline captain, and that's extremely difficult to accomplish nowadays. So you youthful, naive CFI's out there might as well just forget about aviation entirely."

I'm sorry if I don't agree. Flying big jets for a living was a childhood dream of mine, as I'm sure it was many, and really it was the reason why I got started in aviation. However, that has been off my radar screen for some time now, and I honestly don't think of it much. What, exactly, I'm going to do instead remains to be seen, but I refuse to let inflexibility and a low tolerance for ambiguity derail what otherwise could have been a successful career.

And the fact of the matter that in the article Barry blames all of his troubles on deregulation shows he's really in a reactive, "victim" mentality. It doesn't reflect well.

-Goose

 

[rjcap]

You may remember another article by Schiff where his son, a new hire at TWA, was allowed to fly with him on his last trip before retirment. It was an excellent article about a family that pursued aviation.

Ironic how the tables have turned.

 

[CrimsonEclipse]

BTW the glory days are not gone, this is still a fantastic carrer where else can a guy without a college degree school grad have a shot at making $100K/yr doing something he likes. Not many places I know of.

The glory days ARE gone. Deal with it.

CE

 

[tomgoodman]

Sam Clemens, Pilot

Flying big jets for a living was a childhood dream of mine, as I'm sure it was many, and really it was the reason why I got started in aviation.
-Goose

Goose,

At the end of your post, you quote Mark Twain. Here's another from him:

"The Pilot thinks of nothing but the River, and his pride in his profession surpasses that of kings."

Sam Clemens achieved his dream of becoming a Mississippi River Pilot, and he was good at it, being hired for a succession of larger and larger riverboats. The Civil War shut down the river, so he traveled west and tried his hand at writing, under the pen name "Mark Twain".

Today, he might well dream of and succeed at flying airplanes; and if he had to leave that career, he wouldn't think his time had been wasted.

 

[rtmcfi]

Why didn't Paul apply at USA Jet in 2002, he would be making about $65K right now on his way to $100K, and be gone from home about 5.5 days per month average?

Perhaps he had no desire to be a dog on a leash, living in KYIP.....

 

[SpyFlysDOTs]

My uncle is a radiologist and has seen his pay cut in half.
Many prefessions have gone thru this.