It’s an interesting discussion, and I think FFF has pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Deteriorating pay, conditions, satisfaction and job security are by no means limited to aviation. My parents, both now retired, never once suffered unemployment; I know few people of my generation who haven’t had at least one spell out of work. A good friend with 15 years’ I.T. experience (a licence to print money not so long ago) has been made redundant twice in the last 2 years. If life is harder and less rewarding for pilots than in days gone by, I believe it’s simply a reflection of the way society in general is going.
So why do I really want to do this? I’m fortunate in having a
reasonably safe job that’s
reasonably well paid and rewarding, and has
reasonably good prospects. If I told a financial adviser what I’m planning to do, he’d probably give me a good slap and tell me to pull myself together and be grateful for what I’ve got. The trouble is, it bores me silly – always has done, always will. Include commuting and my job eats up 12 hours per day. In other words, 50% of my entire Monday to Friday life is spent doing something I don’t want to do. Great. And I really don’t fancy another 30 years plus of knowing exactly where to stand on the platform so I’m next to the doors when the train stops, just so I can get on in front of all the other sullen commuters.
I realised what I wanted to do the first time someone said “you have control.” And I realised why I wanted to do it during my first jumpseat ride; zero dark hundred one horrible winter’s morning, while the rest of humanity was stumbling around in freezing fog, or standing in the right place on station platforms, we left them all behind and burst out of the overcast into a glorious, crystal clear dawn sky. It was a pivotal moment for me – the airway to Damascus if you like.
I knew this was what I
had to do.
Now in case that sounds dangerously like falling in love - and we all know how blind love can be – I am well aware of the downsides. Many of the pilots I jumpseated with described how the career can be a killer on marriages, how you can miss seeing your kids grow up, living out of a suitcase in anonymous hotels, the job insecurity, incompetent management, etc etc. Not one of them said they’d rather be doing something else.
It was summed up neatly by a very senior pilot of a well known UK charter airline, with whom I was lucky enough to be sharing a glass of wine a couple of months back. Explaining my predicament, that I want to walk away from a safe, sensible career and risk it all to become a commercial pilot, and that - by most reasonable analyses - I must be slightly bonkers, he said; “There is no sensible answer. We all do it because we love flying, it’s as simple as that.”
If you want job security, join the civil service. If you want money, be an accountant or a lawyer. If you want to fly . . .