What's everyones backup career ?

[Amish RakeFight]

I could see Jmonkey doing this job. Aftr workin for ASA he is probably qualified.:laugh:

Just watch out for the guy about to hit you in the head with a pipe wrench. I told you those routes are highly coveted.

 

[hindsight2020]

I was going to go back into the military, get a commission by way of the National Guard, I am prior enlisted Marine, but funny thing is, I cannot take a leave of absence from AT, survive on E-5 pay and then 2LT pay to do all the training, just so when I get back there may no longer be a job to have...so I guess when it all fails I will go be a high school teacher and take a pay cut afterall...oh the irony

I don't think you're looking at it properly from a long-term perspective. I'm a Reserve baby and aside from my meager pay as a bumming 2LT (soon to be 1LT....yeii.....) you couldn't pay me to go take a major airline job, regardless of the fact I don't qualify for one (which is quite telling in it of itself). I don't know how old you are, or how long you've been at AT, and if you live in domicile or not, but having a Guard/Reserve job is great insurance to have as far as flying currency goes in case of a furlough.

Also, unless you're a CA at AT (at which point I doubt you'd be young enough to qualify for UPT unless you had the mother of timing luck) there is really not much opportunity cost in terms of pay differential that you're giving up. In the two years you'll be in training you'll make about first year FO pay, heck more if you account for the non-taxable allowances. It may not work for a major CA, but it sure beats being a regional FO, which is all I'd be able to snag in the civilian world. In that respect, not pursuing airline work was a fairly easy decision for me to make, the alternative was and is an outright joke.

You can make OK money as a bum while you sniff out an ART/AGR job (my plan), while being at home most nights and weekends, aside from voluntary trips you take, and worst case scenario I'd still make more money as a part-time mil pilot/ part-time walmart greeter than day #2 as a furloughee. Combine both jobs in the same location and you're set. Granted I'll still be renting on my variable income status, living meagerly and not capitalizing, but I won't be on the poor house. And the time invested in pursuing an ART job is more worthwhile to me than whatever lost seniority and pay differential I'm giving up by not chasing a freggin' CA upgrade slot so I can start making a livable wage. So if I were you, I'd tell myself that part-time Guard gig you speak of is probably better for your whole life picture than a CA slot at AT. To each their own of course. P/T Guard jobs don't address SJS so there's a non-economic valuation question that can only be addressed individually.

Now, what that perspective doesn't take into account is what has been alluded to in this thread. There is this insistence on the part of pilots to chalk up their lack of skill transferability and unwillingness to do something other than fly to a false sense of "big picture" which is in reality defeatism. That sense of stoicism that some people say they hold on the face of the unstable nature of 121 work is not a position worth of sympathy at all. In so much as you rather stab your eyeballs in than hold a desk job, it is equally voluntary on your part to put yourself in a poor economic position by stubbornly pursuing an employment avenue that constantly kicks your a$$.

You can't have the cake and eat it too. I think it's very telling that when the OP wanted to hear what alternate means of employment people would consider/hash out, in what clearly is a very shaky industry for a 30-year outlook, the responses ranged from outright dismissal of the question (midget porn..haha..oh wait I'm still unemployed...ha- huh?) to the heroic classic "I'm just gonna fly until I get laid off, then I'm gonna do like Peter and sit on my a$$ and do nothing unitl I can fly again, regardless of economic terms, sorry kids, it was out of my control to being with". And people wonder why it's so difficult for pilots to protect their income power...there's no bargaining power when you're unwilling to walk away (price elasticity= 0 ).

Face it, private aviation is turning into a part-time job. Not everybody can work for brown, purple or SW. I think everybody could hedge their bets a little better than chalking it up to "whatever happens, I'll be here to fly whatever's left". That's not noble, that's defeatism and short-sightedness.

 

[say again]

Smoke a big fat J and become a junkie down in Jamaica!!!

 

[RadioClash]

Hindsight,

Unfortunately I am too old for UPT, I'm 34, on 3rd year pay at AT and am looking at the Army NG and the possibilty of going back into Artillery. I don't have SJS and am not chasing a CA upgrade, just trying to provide for my family, and by no way do we live beyond our means. I have to look at all possibilties and no kidding will probably end up being a teacher if all else fails.

 

[hindsight2020]

Hindsight,

Unfortunately I am too old for UPT, I'm 34, on 3rd year pay at AT and am looking at the Army NG and the possibilty of going back into Artillery. I don't have SJS and am not chasing a CA upgrade, just trying to provide for my family, and by no way do we live beyond our means. I have to look at all possibilties and no kidding will probably end up being a teacher if all else fails.

Noted. Makes sense. The latter part of my post was meant as a general thought towards pilots as a labor force, wasn't directed at your individual circumstance, did not mean to suggest you were the one specifically with SJS. Good luck with AT.

 

[JoeMerchant]

Don't forget to vote! Local, State and Fed.

...I agree....Dude's vote will cancel yours out...

 

[JoeMerchant]

Maybe. How's your primary "pro bono F&H" job?

ALPA makes F&H's job easy....A two year old could divide a group of airline pilots....

Amazing....

So you advocate your jobs being eliminated based on free market forces. You don't mind starting over as many times as the free market can recycle you.

And when you get laid off again and again, you want nothing from gov't. No job retraining, no loans, nothing...

Being an Air Line Pilot is not an asset to our nations economy? You like be equated to a hotel maid.



Chickens voting for Frank Purdue....

So let me get this straight....ALPA has no responsibity or solution to the "starting all over" routine you speak of, but you want a middle class family in Fargo to pay taxes to retrain me when market forces do their thing....That is amazing and shows how out of touch you are with the general membership....

We as a union could solve this problem of starting all over....Every other profession has the ability...it can't be that difficult...

If I have to start over....I am capable of taking care of myself....I don't need Uncle Obama to take care of me....It isn't the Federal Govts.(ie tax payers) job to take care of us because we can't figure out a way not to have to start all over again at the bottom....

You're right Rez...Amazing.....

 

[Fly4hire]

Start a a store called ATF(&M)

Alcohol, Tools, Firearms, and Motorcycles

 

[Redmeat]

A two year old could divide a group of airline pilots....

You got that right.

'Herding cats'

 

[Redmeat]

Start a a store called ATF(&M)

Alcohol, Tools, Firearms, and Motorcycles

I like it, one stop shopping.:laugh:

Gonna franchise? I may need it.