OldGoat said:
However, I feel that I may be giving up job security and long term income as my current employer is and should continue to do very well.
You're kidding right? Job security at a 121 carrier? Take a look around you! Aloha and Delta are more serious than EVER about closing their doors. United might as well do the same - the dinosaurs!
If you want to stay 121 do it in freight.
If you want to move to Part 91 there are some compelling reasons to do so but, like everything else, there are a few rules.
First, be VERY careful about going to a corporation’s internal flight department. They change their raison d’être every time the CEO changes. Everyone’s on pins and needles until the dust settles after a change. CEOs tend to move along after 3-5 years so your life will cycle like that.
Second, you should be looking for a management company if you can find one. Working for one for those is a bit like buying mutual funds – you diversify your exposure to risk (of planes going away) and help to ensure your own job security in so doing. I work for one and in ten years we have never operated fewer than 12 aircraft but in that same time only one of the clients that was on the property when I started is still here. Diversify your holdings and no one particular departure will affect you the way it would at a corporation.
Third, you should understand CLEARLY that being able to fly the plane is a given in the Part 91 world. That’s what it says on your license – that you can fly a plane. Being good at a corporate Part 91 gig is about EVERYTHING else that goes with rich people who want what they want – whatever it happens to be. Someone mentioned the 121 stink and this is a big part of it. No one will be leading you by the hand. You get your own weather and you file your own flight plans but you do that AFTER you make all the calls to the caterer, the hotels, the FBOs, and maybe even the flower shop to put the whole ball of wax together.
What do you suppose is just about the worst thing you can have happen (besides an in-flight fire) to you in your plane? Anyone? Beuhler? Okay, it's problems that involve your toilet. Thing won't dump, thing won't re-seal, thing won't flush, FBO can't or won't dump it. This is SERIOUS stuff! When you're 6000+ miles from home in say, southern Argentina and it's happening without hope of anyone helping you resolve it, guess who needs to be the crap expert! Yesirree, the part 91 thing is a different deal altogether!
There is one other thing you should keep in mind as you struggle with your decision. As I said before, in the 121 realm you should be looking at cargo. The profit margins are HUUUUGE in cargo. In addition, people may decide they can’t afford to visit Aunt Martha this Christmas but you can bet they’ll send her a package!
But if you choose to go 91 understand the strength of that decision. The problems in the airline world all revolve around MONEY – mostly that which is locked up in pension plans (aside from direct operating costs, of course). They are trying to find ways to cut back so that the meager dollars they make on ticket sales will cover their costs and then some. It’s not working. Even Southwest admits that they’d be in the tank if it weren’t for their fuel hedging right now.
In the Part 91 world, the opposite is true. The folks that own these aircraft treat them as a luxury. They CHOOSE to spend HUUUUGE amounts of money for the privilege. They KNOW they’re blowing money though a furnace at a rate that most of us down here in the trenches can scarcely imagine. Sure they’d like us to keep the steak consumption under control a bit more these days but if they were interested in cutting back they’d be selling the plane and taking the airlines. That ain’t happenin’! The whole reason the airplane’s there is different right down to the core and that difference is a critical one.
One thing I’ve learned in my career is that it is what you make of it. Ten years ago I was forced in to making the same kind of choice you face now. The first company to offer me a position got my loyalty. I had plenty of opportunities to go to major carriers and had I done so, I might very well be looking at the unemployment line instead of my tenth straight annual bonus next month.
Good Luck!
TIS
