My outlook on this whole situation seems to be a little more Que Sera Sera than most.
Im 30 and currently furloughed after nearly 2 years in the business with redundancy very likely. However I never expected to get a job in the flight deck in the first place. It’s not the “norm” for my upbringing.
I’m from a very working class family and I went the down the working multiple jobs route to pay the £70k for modular training, qualified at 23 and my parents didn’t contribute a penny blah blah blah. (I’ll put the violin away now)
When most of my flight training pals got their first jobs it wasn’t so much of a big deal to their family’s. After all if they hadn’t become pilots they would have been lawyers, doctors or in finance etc. In their social circles it was just expected to have those kinds of high flying careers.
For me and my social circle it was a massive achievement. My family and most of my home town friends work in mundane office, retail type jobs paying under £25k. So to them me becoming a pilot was the talk of the town and not always in a positive way. It’s funny how envious people can be of success.
Even the skippers comment on how I’m the “roughest” pilot they’ve ever met. Honestly sometimes in the crew room I feel like Leonardo DiCaprio in that scene in Titanic where he joins the first class passengers for dinner.
However I can 100% understand the fear some pilots (especially those brought up in the upper middle class) have who’s siblings and family friends children etc all have high flying jobs.
Let’s face it there aren’t many jobs that you can just switch to that pay the same as your average pilot gig and we can’t all be train drivers. Falling from grace is an embarrassing and worrying prospect.
My biggest fear is losing the opportunity to fly and not the reduced income. Earning more than £30k for me was always a dream and one that I’ve achieved. But with the way I’ve been brought up, earning £25k in some boring office job isn’t such a worry but more of a minor financial inconvenience.
I still haven’t got out of that working class lifestyle: peanuts mortgage, old banger on the drive, the love of a £4.99 Wetherspoons breakfast etc etc.
I feel sorry for some of my colleagues that have a terrible shock to the system fast approaching: leased Audi’s that need to be paid for, the prospect of taking little Mary out of private school or downsizing the 4 bed detached house in Surrey.
It’s very hard for some people to realise you can have a happy life in a job that pays less than the national average. Overtime your lifestyles will adjust accordingly, you’ve just got to stay positive.
I really hope in 12 months time we are all laughing at how scared we were about losing our wings having gained or retained our flying jobs.