DA-20 First Officer USA Jet Airlines Willow Run MICHIGAN 1/12/2005

[pilotyip]

Value of a college degree

I have BS and a Master's, but at age 53 I was making $250/wk loading cargo. After Zantop pretended to go out of went out of business in 1997, I had been a temporary High School Chemistry Teacher up until two weeks before the cargo job came along. But they do not teach school in the summer. The value of an unused degree is highly over rated. 53 year old unemployed airline pilots are not eagerly greeted in any industry that I know of, even of having a couple degrees. Of course I did not apply for many of the "College degree preferred jobs" such as apt manager, telephone direct sales, plumping floor manager at Home Depot, etc. If you get a college degree you have to use the knowledge gained in college to develop a career or the degree is basically useless. After getting a degree, flying an airplane is not a knowledge expanding experience; it is skill development experience. Anyone care to chime in and share their experiences on entering the non-avaiton job market after being out of college 20-30 years?

 

[English]

If you get a college degree you have to use the knowledge gained in college to develop a career or the degree is basically useless.

I agree. Who purposely gets a useless education?

 

[pilotyip]

Useless degree

Exactly, again we agree Englsih; anyone who fails to use his or her degree has a useless degree. Getting a degree and flying and airplane, which has nothing to do with the degree is a useless degree. The thread on this board has been getting your degree in anything, because you need it to get the interview. Other than the interview, it is a useless degree.

 

[English]

Let me see if I understand what you are writing - are you stating that a degree is useless unless it leads to a career?

If you are, then no, we don't agree.

 

[pilotyip]

No, I am saying it has little value as a fallback should your aviation career go down the tubes late in life. I was very fortunate to find a job where my teaching and my flying came together as a Director of Training.

 

[rongaudier]

My experience with USA Jet

Early in 2001 I was hired by USA jet into their DC-9 program. Almost immediately after starting class I noticed something was wrong--the majority of the fleet seemed to be sitting on the ramp and not flying.

The second day of class an instuctor entered the classroom and dragged his finger across his throat. This of course was cause for concern since not only
had I left a pretty good job to come work for USA Jet, I was about to sign a lease on an apartment in Belleville.

I asked Randy Hotton (aka PilotYip) if there was anything for me to worry about and if I should go ahead an sign the lease. He assured me that everthing was fine, that none of us had to worry about losing our job.

Later that week we learned that some of the management staff, including the person who had recruited me had been laid off. We were then told that none of us were going to lose our jobs, but we would have to "bleed a little."
Some benefits were cancelled and we were told we would have to take two weeks off without pay (one week per month).

During the second week off without pay, I was called at home and informed that the bottom DC9 first officers were going to be permanently laid off. This of course included myself since I had not even finished training. I immediately got on the phone with my former employer, and fortunately I was able to get my old job back, albeit with loss of seniority.

A year later I heard that hiring had again resumed at USA jet and called Randy to see if I could come back. The response was "Ron, you are really not competitive now with all the high time jet guys we are getting." He did ask me if I was interested in the Falcon, but I was not.

Naturally, I am pretty disappointed especially considering the considerable sacrifice I made by coming to USA jet in the first place. It would seem that the least they could do would be to offer me my postion back instead of giving it to new hires off the street. I hope anyone who is considering going to work for them will think long and hard...especially if they are leaving something pretty good behind.

 

[pilotyip]

Bad times

Ron, I understand your disappointment, but it was tuff times for many people in the airline business. After spring 2001 we did not hire into the DC-9 again. Since then all entry positions have been into the DA-20 F/O position. There was one exception in August of 2002 where two pilots were hired as DA-20 F/O's but they were given DC-9 spots because no one bid the open DC-9 F/O slots. 2001 was a bad time for the on-demand cargo business. The on-demand business was hit much harder than the passenger business. The recession the passenger carriers experienced after 9-11 started in the cargo business in winter of 2001. We went from 150 pilots in March to 60 in Nov 01. A number of operators failed during this period. No one hired since the spring of 2002 has lost their jobs, although some experienced short-term layoffs.

 

[rongaudier]

Randy, I was not aware about not hiring into the DC9. It was my impression that that is what you were doing (hiring into the DC9) when I last talked with you in what was actually the fall of 2002. At any rate, I know the ultimate decisions about who gets hired or layed off are probably not yours. All the same, I really wish it had worked out.
USA Jet was probably the one and only chance I'll ever get at flying a transport category jet. I've decided to stay where I'm at (Empire) indefinately. The only way I'll move now is in the unlikely event that I get hired by a major. I may be in a prop, but at least I feel my job is fairly secure here. These days security counts for alot.