Flight Attendant quits to become Pilot - Then goes back

[UndauntedFlyer]

I know a F/A who took a leave of absence to become a pilot. She quit after 4-years, 2-years with a Regional as a F/O, and came back to UAL. Says she was glad she did the pilot job for a while, but she was really happy to be back staying in decent hotels in big cities like HNL, LAX, SFO, LHR and NYC, along with long layovers even if it meant she was back to passing out trays, serving coffee and saying "goodbye, have a nice day" to 500 passengers a day.

If you really want a career as an airline pilot, the new requirement is to have a real love for flying and a spouse with a good job.

I forgot to mention, the F/A also said that she never made over $22,000 per year as a pilot and sometimes much less. The book rates were higher but there were so many cancellations of flights that resulted in a 16-hour duty day for field standby with no pay and no way to make up the time.

As a F/A she said she now makes more money, has more time off and has much less responsibility.

Maybe "Stew School" is the way to go now days if you don't really like flying that much.

I met this lady on a LHR trip. She was hanging around with the usual airline group in the pub. I thought she was a F/A and she was but then she told me her story of just returning from LOA. And over dinner with our group as I talked with her, she definitely talked the talk and walked the walk of a commuter pilot.

What I have posted is what she said. Now regarding her F/A work, at least flying international, it’s not bad at all from what I see. And I do think her F/A work is much easier than flying the typical commuter schedule with all the crap that's dished out.

Personally I think she should have stuck it out as a pilot until she made captain or maybe moved over to a corporate job. But my point is that I don't think she really had the love of flying as a pilot that is necessary. So to her the F/A work was better. To me, no matter how bad the flying, it's better than F/A work and I think many others share my opinion. But I am sure that some may be happier doing something else.

So I guess the lesson is: if a person doesn't really love flying, don't pursue airline flying as an easier job unless it's a love affair with the business.

Flight Attendants should not look at the pilot job as the easy sit-on-your-butt job that some think it is. And at the end of the day, we're all darn tired.

I didn't ask her every detail about her LOA, but it sounds about right to me.

A year to get all the ratings, a year of CFI work, and two years as a F/O. I think the 22K may be right for even gross pay at some places, but maybe she was talking take-home pay. In any event she has found that being a pilot is a lot of work and not the sit-on-your-butt job that some of the airline employees, especially F/A's think it is. For her it's back to the Galley and she says she's glad to be there.

The point is three-fold:

1. The sorry state of the situation with the commuters

2. Moving from a F/A to a pilot position is not always what a F/A thinks it will be. Both jobs require a lot of work.

3. Don't work to become an airline pilot unless you really love flying. Otherwise, even if you make it through training the real line flying job may be too tuff for some people.


Do I still recommend the airline pilot job to others? The qualifier is the person. If they really love flying, and fly-ins most every other weekend, fly RC airplanes and so forth, then by all means go for it. But if becoming an airline pilot is just an idea of something that sounds interesting, then the pilot job will probably not be what they want.

Burnout is probably the biggest problem in airline work, just as it is in CFIing.

But the strangest thing I see in this business is the constant complaining by all levels of pilots. Be it commuters, 737 captains and even wide body captains. I can understand the burnout complaints of the commuter pilots and CFI’s, but the wide body guys who complain and want to quit is hard to understand. Maybe it’s the stress of commuting. Yes, commuting is a big negative that adds to burnout and resignations.

Your Comments and Questions are welcome.

Undaunted Flyer

 

[IFollowRoads]

Sounds like she skipped a few steps along the way. Which would have given her time to decide if she wanted it or not. Like instructing, charter, 135, etc. I smell an "aviation adademy accelerated jetbridge" program in her process somewhere...

If you take that path to get where you want to be good on ya, but the less hard work you put into getting something, the easier it is to let go later.

$.02

 

[Terrain Terrain]

TOTAL PFT chick

 

[7on7Off]

were her initials C.L?

 

[pipe]

Two major points here:

1) Undaunted - we have finally found you something to do as an over 60 type. It pays better, has better hours, and better layovers. Not to mention, if the two 45 year old "kids" up front get into trouble, you could slip them some sage aviating advice with their coffee. Stuff like "Hey, come left until you get to the N side of the range," or "hey guys, would you like two sugars? By the way, #2 needs to be leaned out a bit more - isn't Rita Heyworth hot?". And maybe UAL would let you wear your pilot uniform without the stripes.

2) Maybe she quit because she saw a bunch of self-serving, selfish a**holes doing their best to throw her another 5 years of the bull$hit by upping the retirement age.

Given the rosy picture you painted of the A$$-end of this industry I don't believe you'd appreciate an extra 5 years there. -- would you?

PIPE

 

[learflyer]

FA's at flight options made more than the FO's.

 

[D-Bo]

TOTAL PFT chick

I met her and she wasn't PFT. She flew for Great Lakes.

 

[ClassG]

I know this one. Failed upgrade twice. Nuff Said.

 

[UndauntedFlyer]

Have things been getting any better at the commuters/regionals? Are some of the F/A's still trying to get pilot jobs or have they resigned themselves to stay in the passenger cabin?

 

[cruxx@9]

The first problem is, being a pilot is really cool in theory.
On TV they make $200K or more a year, have great tans and drive cool cars at their multipule houses

In reality....
No one sees what that pilot did to get there. Flying freight, charter, CFI, crop dusting, Military....what ever. It isn't 0-hero in a year or two. I always tell people interested in becoming a pilot to either go military (not that it is easier, but there are benies). If you are not going to go in the military for whatever reason, you better have to "need to fly" like you need to breathe because the first 10 years or so suck for the normal person. I loved it because I loved to fly. So being on a pager 24/7 and flying an old freighter to all the armpits of the universe was really cool. Even if it didn't pay $200K a year. I look back and can't believe I did that stuff. However the normal person that values sleep, a schedule and a pot to p*ss in thinks otherwise.

It's called paying your dues and if you don't want to do or can't handle it, that is the weeding out process I guess. Some people just weren't cut out to do it as a profession. That's all.

I Wish her luck at her nice hotels and cool layovers.

BTW, how can she not think the Fiesta Inn in Laredo TX isn't a cool layover? The pool had such a cool green tint to it and once you turned on the light most of the roaches went into hiding....and the hookers sometimes were quiet. What a great layover!