cforst513 said:
When your airline furloughs you, what exactly does this mean? Is it just a "you're fired for the time being, but we promise we'll call you" kind of a deal? You don't get paid, right? Do you still have the benefits like health insurance and the like? Also, are there any restrictions on finding a job, either aviation-related or not? Or do these things vary from airline to airline?
You don't get benefit health insurance, you get COBRA insurance. That means that you can opt to have full-cost insurance which will cost you $500-600 a month. I don't think many people take it unless they absolutely have to have insurance.
Also, you can forget about jumpseating on the airline that furloughed you, or any other airline for that matter. That is, until you find another 121 airline job or you get recalled. You also usually don't get standby passes either, but that depends on what airline furloughed you.
The only restriction on getting another job is that sometimes a potential employer will request that you fully resign your seniority number and relinquish your recall rights at the airline that furloughed you. This way the potential employer doesn't have to worrry about bearing the cost of putting you through training just to have you leave as soon as you get recalled to your first job.
That's assuming the job that furloughed you is better than the one you are applying for. In my case, I found a better job and got to move up in the world, but that was very lucky. I think most out of work regional pilots end up going to another regional where you end up starting all over again at the bottom.
When the time for recall comes, assuming they still have their recall rights, furloughed pilots will have to figure out which airline is going to offer them a better life and make a decision to stay where they are at or to take the recall to their previous airline.
A lot of military pilots that I know of who are furloughed from the majors got back into the military, either active, guard, or reserve. Those guys are probably out in Iraq right now, away from their families a lot more than they were when they flew for a major.
I think that a pilot from a major airline will be much more reluctant to resign his/her seniority rights for another carrier because of the income potential when they get recalled. (Assuming the companies haven't gobbled up everyone's good salaries by then in contract concessions.) These guys have good experience in heavy jets so they are good candidates for the up and coming LCC's like JetBlue, Southwest, and AirTran, where they can still make a living regardless. Of course, there are far more furloughees than there are good jobs available.
The sad reality is, many furloughed pilots end up working at Home Depot or going back to school to find another career. The industry is losing its best and most experienced assets. This is for a multitude of reasons, (that's for another time) but they all boil down to BAD MANAGEMENT! It's not pilots vs. pilots, all we can do is try to better ourselves and our industry through collective bargaining by negotiating better contracts. Unfortunately, management cries poor-mouth and comes asking for concessions and more furloughs as pilots attempt to negotiate contracts that barely cover cost-of-living increases, which, in reality, are NOT raises. They are winning, because they can furlough high-paid pilots and replace them with lower cost airplanes and pilots. All the while, they whipsaw pilot groups against each other to scare us into flying for even lower wages. They keep us hungry and beaten, like dogs, so that we will fight each other for every last scrap of meat that falls off their dinner table.
Getting furloughed, no matter what kind of spin somebody tries to put on it, is a smack in the face that really wakes pilots up to the fact that we are just numbers to the bean counters, and warm bodies in the seat to management. In reality, we are humans with families, kids, mortgages, and bills. Having to go from being employed one month, to figuring out how you are going to make ends meet and keep a roof over your head the next, is a terrible thing. Especially when you got hired in the good times and you used to have that warm, fuzzy feeling at night that you were going to be ok.
This industry bites. I would highly recommend flying cargo vs. passenger airlines, at least business is good over here and our segment is growing and hiring. It is definitely a different world, but I find it enjoyable.
Rant over.
