So really why do we fly if we ain't gonna get paid?

[hindsight2020]

So you think you'll be done at 5 and have weekends off huh? Not with most well paid 9-5 jobs. You take your work home with you often (doesn't happen in the airlines), and you'll be in on the weekends too. Best part is you'll be on a salary so you don't get paid extra for it.

EXACTLY! Biggest underestimation when comparing pay issues with the aviation industry. If I had a quarter for every ex-college buddy who became disgruntled doing the 9-5 I'd be able to afford my own jet.

It still gives me chill how often I hear: "the money? Yeah it's great, but by the time I get out of the office at 5 I'm freggin' tired as hell, so I drive home, sit on the couch, pass out, wake up at 6am rinse and repeat. By the time Friday rolls around I'm dreading Saturday cause I'll most likely be assigned work for the next week and I dread Sunday because I have to look forward to going to work on Monday! I can't even enjoy the sh%t I get to buy with the money" (this particular friend worked in engineering and made 40K start-up salary, left 10 months later...still haven't heard back from the guy)

I'm by no means suggesting 121 work is bliss, I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole myself, but there's a lot to be said about the impact 9-5 jobs have on your mental sanity.

 

[satpak77]

It still gives me chill how often I hear: "the money? Yeah it's great, but by the time I get out of the office at 5 I'm freggin' tired as hell, so I drive home, sit on the couch, pass out, wake up at 6am rinse and repeat. By the time Friday rolls around I'm dreading Saturday cause I'll most likely be assigned work for the next week and I dread Sunday because I have to look forward to going to work on Monday! I can't even enjoy the sh%t I get to buy with the money" (this particular friend worked in engineering and made 40K start-up salary, left 10 months later...still haven't heard back from the guy)

How about

Wake up at 4 AM, meet the crew van, takeoff at 6 AM, fly IFR approaches the next 8.000 (three zeros for emphasis) flight hours, check into the hotel, repeat for 4 days, on the road. "Get home tired?" The only thing worse is get to the hotel tired, away from home.

You can forget "dreading" Sunday and Saturday, as you will be flying those days. Christmas? Working that day.

"40K start-up salary?" Try $18,000 to pull gear handles and do walk-arounds in the ice, in addition to the above work conditions.

So you think you'll be done at 5 and have weekends off huh? Not with most well paid 9-5 jobs. You take your work home with you often (doesn't happen in the airlines), and you'll be in on the weekends too. Best part is you'll be on a salary so you don't get paid extra for it.

Yeah, I have never met a pilot who brought home Jepp updates, Flightsafety manuals, etc home on the weekend. Or studied for another rating. Or worn your cell or pager on the weekend, being "available".

Or simply had to deal with the stress of the airline lifestyle at home, with mom and the kids, on the weekend, "off" but fielding questions and repairing lost time. Nah, pilots never take work home on the weekend.

Welcome to life as a pilot.

For what? (NOTE: You will get asked this alot by the GF, wife, kids, parents). You will get asked more and more as the years drag on, dragging them thru destroyed holidays, family reunions, the station wagon with 200K on the clock since your are a commuter pilot, the small apartment. For what? That big airline pension?

Those don't exist anymore either.

Nice career this has turned into....

 

[Ralgha]

How about

Wake up at 4 AM, meet the crew van, takeoff at 6 AM, fly IFR approaches the next 8.000 (three zeros for emphasis) flight hours, check into the hotel, repeat for 4 days, on the road. "Get home tired?" The only thing worse is get to the hotel tired, away from home.

You can forget "dreading" Sunday and Saturday, as you will be flying those days. Christmas? Working that day.

"40K start-up salary?" Try $18,000 to pull gear handles and do walk-arounds in the ice, in addition to the above work conditions.

Have you ever worked a "well paid 9-5" job? Unfortunately it's not something you can explain to most pilots. I hung out with three friends from college a couple weeks ago, two work for Intel (one as a sales rep, the other as a design engineer), and one works for Garmin as a software engineer. The one who was a sales rep gets rammed worse than reserve pilots do ("oh hi, back from the 4 day business trip in Vegas (over the weekend)? Yeah, you're going to Boston for a week starting tomorrow, have a nice day"). The other two both brought work home with them most nights, and both were working that weekend too. All three are salaried, none got any extra pay for the extra work. Required rest periods? What are those? When there's a deadline, you work 24/7 for as long as it takes. No 8 hours rest between duty periods. No 24 hours off every 7 days. No maximum of 100 hours per month.

Getting the idea yet? Probably not.

Yeah, I have never met a pilot who brought home Jepp updates, Flightsafety manuals, etc home on the weekend. Or studied for another rating. Or worn your cell or pager on the weekend, being "available".

Well if you count this website, you can chalk me up to the column of never having done that stuff. I do it on duty, with the exception of studying for another rating, which, read this very carefully, is not forced on you (I'm not counting corporate gigs where they might). If you get displaced into different equipment, or otherwised moved without your request, you *gasp* get paid for the training. If you wear the cell or pager on the weekend, then you're either on reserve (not a valid complaint), or you chose to do it. In any case, if you get called in, you get paid for it.

Or simply had to deal with the stress of the airline lifestyle at home, with mom and the kids, on the weekend, "off" but fielding questions and repairing lost time. Nah, pilots never take work home on the weekend.

Ever experienced the stress of a hard-core (high paying) engineering job? Didn't think so. It rips up the families just as easily. Airline pilots do not have a monopoly on the "this job is hell on families" situation, though they like to tell themselves they do.

For what? (NOTE: You will get asked this alot by the GF, wife, kids, parents). You will get asked more and more as the years drag on, dragging them thru destroyed holidays, family reunions, the station wagon with 200K on the clock since your are a commuter pilot, the small apartment. For what? That big airline pension?

Those don't exist anymore either.

Nice career this has turned into....

You want a pension? In this day and age? News flash, airlines are not the only companies dumping pensions.

Much as airline pilots hate to admit it, their job is not that much different from your "well paying 9-5 job". I know that's a bitter pill to swallow, but it's reality.

 

[satpak77]

how are you defining "well-paid"

 

[QueensPilot]

Hey Munga

If you have been with Eagle for 6 years, I would think your upgrade can't be too far away, right? I mean, are there any 10 year F/Os at regionals? So I would imagine you really are going to upgrade soon. So why don't you just stick it out, get the upgrade, and then see how the new income holds you and your family? I mean, you come this far, and if you leave, you could be self sabatoging yourself. Maybe you will double your pay as a Captain? Just my 2 cents.

 

[Munga]

You would think that an upgrade would be soon, but everytime I have said that it gets longer.

Eagle is neither expanding, nor is it getting more airplanes - so the only way we can upgrade is through attrition. Our attrition is mostly FO's, but we do have quite a bit of reitrements. We have a very senior seniority list. The only other way for us to upgrade is based on when AA decides to recall. We have about 400 furloughed AA'ers sitting in RJ CA seats. They are the main reason for all of the multiple displacements. AA won't be recalling anytime soon - so all we have to look for is retirements or AA'ers quiting. Life pretty bad for the flowbacks (AA), so a few of them quit every month. We are also shrinking our training department, so they just displaced those instructors back the line- thus dispalcing more of our line CA's back to FO's.

I have made my descision to leave and fly as a hobby. Hopefully I won't regret it, but at least I will never be able to say I didn't try.

 

[Goose Egg]

I plan on staying away from the airlines for now and we'll just see where aviation takes me.

I may spend a little time at a smaller turboprop operator, but otherwise I have the same strategy.

-Goose

 

[Regul8r]

If you have been with Eagle for 6 years, I would think your upgrade can't be too far away, right? I mean, are there any 10 year F/Os at regionals? So I would imagine you really are going to upgrade soon. So why don't you just stick it out, get the upgrade, and then see how the new income holds you and your family? I mean, you come this far, and if you leave, you could be self sabatoging yourself. Maybe you will double your pay as a Captain? Just my 2 cents.

Big deal about ten years. We all know that back in the day it was not uncommon for pilots to be F/O's for 15+ years only to get furloughed towards the end and get hired with Eastern or Pan Am. ANY job you go to will have it's ups and downs. It just depends on how well you deal with it. As for taking work home with you and working on the weekends, that is a sign of piss poor time management and misallocation of resources on your Boss's behalf. Either rat his a$$ out and hang him out to dry, or search for a new job.

 

[Champ42272]

For what it's worth, I would hang at Eagle.

Flying airplanes is a sickness. We get taught to fly and fall in love with the freedom and the thrill of flight, but very few people actually think ahead far enough to realize what personal sacrifices it takes to make this lifestyle a career.

As far as being an FO for six years here is something you might find interesting. My first flight in the cockpit of a Pan Am B727 (not even as a crew member, but that is another story). The FO who was in the right seat that day (Frankfurt to Tegel, Berlin based crew) had been at Pan Am for 25 years and was still an FO and was going to upgrade on the next bid. It never came and Pan Am went out of business 2 years later.

My point is there is only one person in the world that can make you happy, and that someone is you.

If you really love it, you won't leave. If you do, you'll miss it forever.

Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Champ 42272

 

[FN FAL]

You would think that an upgrade would be soon, but everytime I have said that it gets longer.

Eagle is neither expanding, nor is it getting more airplanes - so the only way we can upgrade is through attrition. Our attrition is mostly FO's, but we do have quite a bit of reitrements. We have a very senior seniority list...

Why don't you get a part time job as a police officer at your base? You could hang out around the taverns looking for AE parking stickers on cars when on patrol and work that seniority list down.