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.

 

[avbug]

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.

Ralgha, based on your miniresume under your name, you're very low experience....give it a few more years and get a few companies under your belt...some broader experience, and then make the same reply. You won't be a ble to do it honestly.

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.

At major airlines, yes. At regionals, even "back in the day," no. More particularly, this person passed through the hottest hiring period in the history of aviation during his tenure with eagle, when upgrades were occuring at the fastest rate and the most consistant rate that they have occured, ever. This wasn't back in the day, this is today, and pre-09/11. Big difference.

 

[Munga]

At major airlines, yes. At regionals, even "back in the day," no. More particularly, this person passed through the hottest hiring period in the history of aviation during his tenure with eagle, when upgrades were occuring at the fastest rate and the most consistant rate that they have occured, ever. This wasn't back in the day, this is today, and pre-09/11. Big difference.

Exactly. If I was at a "career" airline, my outlook would have been different. Eventhough things suck right now at main "major" or "national" airlines, they still better schedules, better benifits, better hotels, better airplanes, better pay, ect. ect.

My biggest mistake was coming to Eagle and staying for as long as I have. Yes, I should have quit and gone to skypest, shaniqua, ASA (don't have a nick for them yet) or a Frax. I made my bed and I have to get out of it, no question. When I got hired at Beagle, we had 18 month upgrades and lots of movement with fleet expansion and people getting hired - so was everybody else but Horizon. Since Eagle was the biggest, I thought that was the best bet for me. But we could talk about should'a would'a could'a all day.

For those of you looking at Regionals, look long and hard. Just cause they have quick upgrades now, doesn't mean they will 2 years from now. Any of their codeshares could liquadate or end their contracts at anytime - then you're screwed. Also look at their contracts, we still have 12 years left on ours - thanks ALPO. Maybe you'll get lucky.

 

[Regul8r]

I see your point, but define "career" airline? You mean Mesa and Skywest? The line between Regionals and Majors is getting fuzzier every day. Regionals are turning into your "career" airlines.

As for "this person passed through the hottest hiring period in the history of aviation." So he got on and went to the back of the bus, it happens...that's aviation.

 

[pilotyip]

It takes about 10 years in a career field to establish yourself, you have invested 6 years. If being with your family is your first priority, then a flying carrer will not meet your first requirement. If being home for all the big events is what you need. Then I think school teacher is the best fit. I was not home for all the big events in my son's life, buy I did have time to teach him how to fly. So what does he do after he is done flying for Uncle Sam, he becomes an airline pilot. Must be my fault because of my lifestyle choice and not being there, if only I had been home every night. LOL

 

[FN FAL]

I see your point, but define "career" airline? You mean Mesa and Skywest? The line between Regionals and Majors is getting fuzzier every day. Regionals are turning into your "career" airlines.

As for "this person passed through the hottest hiring period in the history of aviation." So he got on and went to the back of the bus, it happens...that's aviation.

You mean the regionals are the airline that you work at for the length of a "career", then you get to become the equivelent of a "wal-mart" door greeter by having to fly 135 after you turn age 60, because you can't afford to retire.

 

[satpak77]

how are you defining "well-paid"

still waiting....

 

[Regul8r]

Bingo

You mean the regionals are the airline that you work at for the length of a "career", then you get to become the equivelent of a "wal-mart" door greeter by having to fly 135 after you turn age 60, because you can't afford to retire.

Unfortunately, you're right in many cases FN. It's all the damn Qwidgeybo's running the companies...

 

[Freight Dog]

Munga, if you think you'll be happier doing 9-5, go rent the movie "Office Space."

 

[mocaman]

I cant contribute much advice on the aviation side of things, but I can share about life as a 9-5er (or 3:30p.m.-1:00a.m.er). I work for Ford Motor Company in Chicago at a stamping plant. I am also working on my CFI. Ford has been good to me and my family, but I cant imagine doing factory work for 30+ years. So many times I will be walking into work and will see an airliner or corporate jet lined up for MDW. It always brightens my day to see that, and hope that one day I can get out of Ford and be flying. Ford is gloomy,smelly, dark, and insanely routine. Imagine picking up a something on the left hand side of a table and putting it on the right side 800 times a day. I think it might be like solitary confinement. Anyway, I may not be doing this much longer if Bill Ford has anything to say about it. Ford is planning on "Major Restructuring" to be announced Jan. I only have 4 years seniority so I am kinda nervous about it. The best job I ever had was as a ramper for NWA at MDW. I studied instrument stuff for 4 hours a day and "worked" the other 4. Times are really changing from just a few years ago. My wife is graduating from law school in May 06. She is about 15 out of 170 ish in her class. She is having a tough time finding a job, and getting interviews. Her friend just got a job at a firm as associate and will be making about $35,000 her first year. Sorry for the rambling, I think Ford has reduced my IQ. My point to all of this is....crap I guess i dont have one.

 

[11thHour]

I left flying after a couple years as an FO for a regional (supposedly one of the 'better' regionals). I have a bachelors degree in aviation management. So, I got a job in airport ops, with plans to move into airport management. Initially, I thought I had made a good move. 12 days off a month, $40k a year to start, govt job so stable. After a couple years of that, I realized I had made a big mistake leaving flying. First off, that job sucks. The endless red tape, lack of standardization, horrible office politics, endless meetings. It was a daily misery. Then, the 12 days off were more like 8 each month, becuase they understaffed the departments and then forced overtime. Also, becuase it's a govt job, there is no movement. People become institutionalized and retire out, so I was moving nowhere in regards to schedules and days off, as they were seniority based. Add on to that during snow season, they put you on call at 2am in case of snow. Thing is, we did nothing with snow removal, but management would call us in anyway. At 2am for christ sake! After 3 years, I topped out in pay at 45k. The city froze pay increases. Movement is nil, and promotions essentially happen only when someone dies. I thought about sticking it out to pursue airport management, but even the superintendant was only making 60k a year, and those guys don't have a life. They basically live to work, as they are called in on days off regularly. On top of that, those positions open up VERY rarely, and the competition is absolutely fierce.

So yeah, I was actually FAR happier at the regional, and I've gone back to flying. It's an unstable field, yes. But most industries out there are seeing their benefits cut back, hours increased, pensions cut, or are being outsourced overseas. I tell ya what, after seeing what a friend of mine goes through in the IT industry, I feel happy I never pursued that field like I nearly did.

I wish you the best of luck. I tried the career change thing, and it was a mistake for me. Maybe for you it will be better. Just be realistic in what you hope to achieve. Realize that even 60k is very hard to come by in just about any field. There are exceptions, but they are very hard to come by. I thought about going back to school (which meant more debt - ugh) to get a degree in Finance and/or Economics. They seem to make good money, and are in fairly good demand, especially with a masters. But that meant starting all over, and doing something that would have bored me to tears. Aviation is really a love/hate thing. Somedays I love it, other days I truly hate it. But I realize I could be a corporate drone herded into some office somewhere, getting the life sucked out of me by the flourescent lights and the naggy, gossiping office whores. No thanks. Best of luck, and HAVE A PLAN.