Realistic contract pilot options

[Toad4]

I need a Midol...

Look, I am certainly not attacking anyone for making money. I understand that this is a business, a competitive one at that, and the most qualified/capable people should win. I think that should always be the case. I probably should have been more specific and less emotional in my post. Pilots make the best decisions with the info they have for the situation that they are in, that's our nature. I honestly believe that the furlough guys are doing just that. I wish we could all have a job, fly good equipment, work half the year, and make 6 figures. I am sure that someday I will get there and yes I am lucky to have a job and be a Capt. on a jet at 26. I just find it ironic that our industry is so strange and it can be extremely frustrating.

 

[Ty Webb]

Well, as a former bizjet now airline guy, I would like to weigh in on this one.

While it is true that a furloughed airline guy will almost undoubtably do well in the "schoolhouse", and, most will even re-discover the arcane arts of operational planning and customer service (amazing what a mortgage payment will do to some of us), there are a couple of other factors that should come into play here.

One of the problems I see is that hiring an airline pilot into the left seat is particularly upsetting, especially to the lower-time but higher-seniority corporate pilot . . . . kind of like hiring street captains- not very popular with those pilots already on board.

Likewise for the local guy who is waiting for an opening in the flight department, only to see an airline guy hired ahead of him. We have to remember that guys who dedicate their careers to corporate flying need to be given stronger consideration, and to remember that when the airline calls, the furloughee is going back. If there is a vacuum of qualified pilots left in corporate, it is going to be very difficult and expensive to fix that void.

I would say, sure, hire a furloughee, but don't pass over a good corporate candidate simply because the furloughee has a few more thousand hours of watching the little white airplane gobble up the magenta course line . . . .