pilotyip said:
If you want to be a meter reader by all means go for it. If you are out to make Millions stay out of aviation. Go to a top name college take the hardest courses they have, get into Harvard, Michigan or Sanford's MBA program. Then name your price on what it would take for to work for someone. This has nothing to do with wanting to fly for a living. Flying is still a great career. Where else can a guy without a college degree have a good chance of making $100K yr with 12-16 days off per month by his early 30's. If you really like to fly and are not in it for respect, prestige, $100K to start out, it is a great place to do something you love and be paid for it. Many people only dream about a job like that. There are too many negative vibes on this board. This might tend to discourage a person who thinking about flying as a career. Do not be discouraged, flying is still a great career. I would recommend it to anyone who likes to fly.
YIP, please don't take this the wrong way, but you are an idiot.
First of all, it's STAMFORD not Sanford. Second, having an MBA simply means you have a graduate degree in business administration, it does not translate to an automatic career with an income exceeding $100K/yr. I am willing to bet that MBA grads (with maybe a few, and I emphasize few) from Harvard, Stamford, and Michigan are NOT going into an interview and "naming their price". MBA's are a dime a dozen and most are lucky to land a job at the Tim Horton's at I-94 and Rawsonville road.
Flying is still not a great career. The $100,000/yr with 12-16 days off a year can only be found at a select few carriers, and NONE of them are in YIP. Sure, you can make $100k/yr out of YIP, but you are home 12-16 days out of the YEAR and are probably busting duty-time FAR's in the process.
And by the way, $100K/yr is not a lot of money, unless you live on Green Acres. Do you know how far 100 Grand gets you in the Detroit area? Not too far from Ypsilanti. 10 years ago it was a lot of money, but not today. After taxes, that translates to about $65,000.00 in take-home pay for the year. The average price for a decent house in metro Detroit is just under $200,000.00, and in a decent area. Of course, you could settle for a used fixer-upper in one of the trashy dope-dealing neighborhoods of lovely Belleville. How about a car, going to need one of those too. 401K? Going to have to fund that too, because the last time I checked USA Jet didn't have a roaring pension fund.
YIP, $100,000 in today's dollars is good money, but not great money.
If you really want to fly, do it as a hobby. The majority of the flying jobs available are not even worth going to.