For those who quit the regionals...

[Kalifornia]

It is different today than twenty years ago. It is very difficult to point out why.

Twenty years ago the airline jobs seemed to be so much more competitive. Delta and Northwest hired almost 100% military. American 95%. United was dealing with affirmative action while Continental was considered a "Scab" airline. America West was a bit easier to get a job and Southwest required that $10,000 type rating for so few jobs available. (It cost 10 grand back then for the type). Others were just going out of business.

The "Regionals"(which they really were regional airlines back then) had higher minimum requirements and were just as competitive their own way to get a job. We flew up to 12 legs a day hand flying Metros or Jetstreams or Bandits of Beech 99s and 1900s etc, etc, etc. We flew over a hundred hours a month (part 135), lived on poverty wages and out of our cars at times. And were having the times of our lives making great friends for our lifetimes. We loved to fly.

Today, its tough to find a happy major pilot (unless you are SWA) and "Regional" pilots appear to be as unhappy about their job as ever. It appears over the past fifteen years it has just gotten worse as time has progressed without ever getting better Even when United got that incredible contract in the late 90's they didn't seem real happy. The "Regionals" have much better equipment and fly less but largely think their dream of flying for the airlines was a huge mistake.

There have always been some carriers with better reputations than others, but what happened?

One variable is the internet. Information and opinions now. Twenty years ago you would have to wait for the FAPA (not the Frontier union but what was before Air Inc) monthly news letter or magazine to see who was hiring what. There were only a couple businesses that offer interview prep and the famous Irv Jazinski who had the interview bible and personalized service. The only opinions were from those around you and the occasional run in from old buds at other airlines.

You read FI, Pprune and your own union forums and it is negative, negative, negative. Often time Masked individuals slinging personal insults on their dead time in hotels or days off when the kids and wife are away. I am as guilty as the next guy with this.

I am thinking that it is the internet that has brought a sense of entitlement to many who wish this business was different. Since the beginning of the industry, there have always been time away from home, missed holidays, football games, weddings and first steps because daddy and now mommy has to put food on the table and a roof over your head. I grew up in a Doctors family and I can say that I saw my father less than most all of us see our kids. Hour for hour we probably earned the same amount of money.

I still love my profession and an advocate for those who share my love for aviation. I do advise them to stay off the boards. I swear it is was taints even the most positive person.

Best of luck to us all.

Great post, guilty here too of giving out plenty of negative vibes on the good 'ole/bad ole' internet. Not playing exactly nice, but its tough not to utilize the resource to express frustration or to give a polar assessment versus the fluff the flight training schools sell with shiny jet syndrome to get someone to shell out mortgage size loans to obtain the dream. This career is extremely bipolar as in a really good deal is a really good deal, and a real bad situation, well again with reality, has lead to a lot of pilots who buy into the best part time job mentality only to break down and commit suicide when the good times end. It doesn't get any more real, repulsive, and sad than that.

There still is a race to the bottom mentality out there that says the key is to find the crappiest regional then national carrier with the quickest upgrade and get your time ASAP to groom for the top of the mountain carrier which all and all has a negative impact on the entire profession including the top of the mountain carrier. There are plenty of pilots who go to a crappy carrier with a union and then associate unions with crappy conditions even though there's only so much any union can do to overcome someone like Hulas, Ornstein, etc. The only real growth is in non-union carriers: Virgin America, Emirates, but with no protections what so ever and no guarantees any of their good clauses won't change in an instant.

 

[Propsync]

To the OP-

1. Low-level manager for a fortune 100 box hauler.

2. I miss flying to an extent. I don't miss the career. I refuse to rent or get current.

Everybody has their reasons, I've slowly learned. What's best for you is good enough for me. I left because I saw nothing good for the short term. I will be removed five years this April. By choice. I turned in my two weeks, and walked. I even honored the crappy extension I got on my last day. I was lucky to have a good plan B before I bolted. I was making 3/4 of my lousy captain pay as everybody was losing their jobs, less than a year later. I got lucky. I'm in a position to pay off my house in the next four years and be at home every night. I see my daughter every day and my wife on the weekends, as we work opposite shifts for daycare reasons. It's really no different than the regionals, I'm just home a lot more.

As far as those looking to 'venture' out, go for it. If you get an interview, just remember to take your attributes/skills as a pilot, and tailor them to the interview/job/business. Most employers love pilots. They know that pilots are people with a high skill-set who can command a situation and can think for themselves. Most college kids that I've seen are taking 2-3 years to just to be at a base level of those skills.

My favorite example is the fact we all can shut an engine down that is on fire in roughly a minute by the checklist. It's a potentially life-or-death ordeal. I see people that take 20 minutes to ask for help that could have solved their situation in 10 seconds by asking for help. The difference? We aren't doing anything in the life-or-death realm.

Embrace your attributes. Adapt/apply your skills. Good luck, all.

 

[JA PILOT]

Propsync,
Good advice for those in the industry, that are unwilling to dump out. I walk away about 2 yrs ago for the same reasons as you. I miss flying, but I would not rent or get current.
Currently, working in a field that my pilot skills have been of value. Working for a Chemical firm and using my brain to make some real money. Finishing up a chemistry degree on the way to better avenues ahead. Wish i would have left soon so that I would have paid off more debt. Which amounted from too much time wishing for a job in the majors.
Today I am happier and have more free time to enjoy life. Sleeping in my bed every night is a blessing!!!
For those of you that are left behind or starting out. Leave this industry and do not look back.
The industry job is to use you and throw you away.
Look what happening to the guys at American.
Good luck to you all!

 

[BoDEAN]

Propsync,
Good advice for those in the industry, that are unwilling to dump out. I walk away about 2 yrs ago for the same reasons as you. I miss flying, but I would not rent or get current.
Currently, working in a field that my pilot skills have been of value. Working for a Chemical firm and using my brain to make some real money. Finishing up a chemistry degree on the way to better avenues ahead. Wish i would have left soon so that I would have paid off more debt. Which amounted from too much time wishing for a job in the majors.
Today I am happier and have more free time to enjoy life. Sleeping in my bed every night is a blessing!!!
For those of you that are left behind or starting out. Leave this industry and do not look back.
The industry job is to use you and throw you away.
Look what happening to the guys at American.
Good luck to you all!

Well said. Hope things are working otu good for you JA Pilot

 

[acpilot]

I bailed on full time professional flying and haven't looked back. SO MUCH more stable out here in the real world. Can't recommend it strongly enough.

Get an MBA from the best school you can get into and apply to every company you can think of. There are jobs, particularly for "recent college graduates" (RCGs), and they are good jobs. Get a glider add on and spend your weekends doing aerobatics on the cheap!

I left aviation making a little over $46k (excluding tons of per diem) and got into driving a desk for well over twice that all said and done. Make friends at the local airport and trade free CFI services for being named on the airplane's private insurance. You get to use NICE planes for fuel plus a fixed fee in exchange for keeping the owner current and up to speed in his plane. Currently have this deal going on a 414. You don't need to relegate yourself to a 172 to get your "fix."

Like a previous poster said, the FLYING is fun. The associated BS is just that. I type this from my bed...which I sleep in every night now. Overnighting in cargo holds during blizzards in hammocks made of cargo nets was fun when I was 23, not so much any more.

There is a life outside of aviation and it blows the plot's life clean out of the water. Those who say that flying a desk is the worst possible career option haven't put to much thought into it.

I say all this having left a perfectly good 135 mgmt position that still exists flying a mixed piston and turbine fleet on government contracts with the odd biomedical flight and private charter every now and then. I was happy but uneasy about the inherent instability of the aviation industry.

Bail. Do it. Do it now before it's too late...but do it with a plan.

 

[joepilot29]

I am leaning towards bailing on this career as well. As a soon to be laid off pilot from Comair, I refuse to go work for another regional. Had my fill of 5.5 years at Comair. I interviewed at a 135 company last week but didn't get the job. I am heading out to talk to a construction company that I had worked for up until 2008. Had 14 good years with them! They helped me out during my early years at Comair by letting me work part time! Funny thing is they are non union and I never once lost my job!

I have 2 college degrees but cannot get into the idea of getting an MBA. Total torture! Really don't want an office job so I guess it will be back to eating dirt and running heavy equipment! I still love doing that more then flying airplanes! Also sad is I can make more money running a bulldozer then flying a crj!

 

[JA PILOT]

Joe Pilot,
You are about to open a new door in your life. Trust me that making an honest living working in aviation doesn't exist in the amount of time in your most valuable period of your life. Support and enjoy your family on the valuable time you have left. If Fed Ex/UPS did not happen yet ...oh well.
I will be starting a program this January that will lead me onto better QOL. I am happy the work I put in will bear good fruit.
Left aviation 2 yrs ago with 10 yrs of one step forward and two steps back at every given cycle of my career.
I personally, would not invest in an MBA because, I believe a business course at a community college will teach you all you need to know, with the help of some magazines in business.
I have enrolled in a lifespan development psychology course which I should have taken when I joined the airlines. I thought this subject would be BS but the management of an airlines must run this playbook on every pilot in the industry. You would be disgusted and surprised how they raped us of the most profitable years of our lives with a few simple psychological tricks in these books. Hopefully some of the younger pilots will not drink the swill that was given to most of us, but that will be unlikely. Regional Airlines depend on the lack of knowledge outside of aviation in their work force. The personnel interview process of the interview,are done to weed out a certain mindset they wish to not employ. It have nothing to do with your flying ability. Basically, the underlying questions are based on will you shut your mouth, leave your family, give up everything deemed reasonable, but most important do it for poverty wages till I throw you out. (I will list the battery of questions at a later date which management use for a psychological profile).

Anyhow, to the rest of you guys still hung up on the dream I wish you all the best.
Those of you who woke up... the nightmare is over.

 

[Little_Bill]

I guess you took the red pill. Say hello to Neo and Morpheus for me.
I keed I keed.

 

[Always deferred]

I am leaning towards bailing on this career as well. As a soon to be laid off pilot from Comair, I refuse to go work for another regional. Had my fill of 5.5 years at Comair. I interviewed at a 135 company last week but didn't get the job. I am heading out to talk to a construction company that I had worked for up until 2008. Had 14 good years with them! They helped me out during my early years at Comair by letting me work part time! Funny thing is they are non union and I never once lost my job!

I have 2 college degrees but cannot get into the idea of getting an MBA. Total torture! Really don't want an office job so I guess it will be back to eating dirt and running heavy equipment! I still love doing that more then flying airplanes! Also sad is I can make more money running a bulldozer then flying a crj!

Joe -

Consider working for the FAA as an inspector. It's a great job, keeps you in flying shape, and you have the chance to really impact safety. I did it for awhile, then it opened other doors. I also just finished my MBA which has opened even more doors. PM me if you'd like.

 

[J.Otto]

Basically, the underlying questions are based on will you shut your mouth, leave your family, give up everything deemed reasonable, but most important do it for poverty wages till I throw you out. (I will list the battery of questions at a later date which management use for a psychological profile).

if you can, post those questions!