Ty Webb said:Albie is right on.
Another thing that hasn't been mentioned here is that if you live in an area that isn't expensive and has good public schools, you may not have to work your sack off.
I live in a town that has great public schools, Gulf of Mexico beaches a short drive away, no crime, and 6 flights a day to ATL on my own carrier . . . and the taxes are so low, I have to laugh as I sign the check . . . . maybe that has more to do with my happiness than the name brand of the airline I manipulate the controls for.
Quality of life . . . . it means different things to different people.
Albie also has a job that will be infinitely harder to attain for someone who is 20 yrs old right now. Like I said, I love my job at a major, but ain't no way I'm going back to a commuter. Someone earlier said that aviation is a mature industry and that airlines will be able to shop around for the lowest paid pilot. What happens in the future when, "the people who'd fly for free" are pretty much doing that? I know of one commuter Air Oregon (merged into horizon) that didn't pay its copilots! Although illegal now, is that the direction we're heading?
I doubt Albie15 would fly for Fedex for $30K/yr. And that could be a scenario for the future. Would Albie15 suggest aviation as a future for his kids? I'm not...way too much uncertainty. In the future, a pilot can look forward to a career goal of making $60000 as a senior captain at a LCC that has come in and undercut even Mesa in terms of labor costs. There are people out there who'd do it for that little, it is only a matter of time for some company to find them. Two years ago UAL78 (who's presence on this board has since vanished) said he would "fly for peanuts" to save his airline. In 02 Alaska was hiring 100 pilots. They had 10,000 Apps! That is a whole lotta pilots looking for work. I don't know the current #s because I don't have an app on file with them anymore.
As for the "Shopping at the Mall with Mommy" idea. We tried that too. My kids said they'd rather not go to the mall and see mommy and daddy more. But those are my kids.
Having said that Best flying jobs going right now...Fedex an UPS. But they can't employ all the pilots out there. I loved flying cargo at NWA.
I found this on another thread
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It is gonna be funny when today's LCC pilots are called greedy by the next generation of pilots.
It couldn't be more true.
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