Lookleft,
This is a JQ thread and I don’t want to derail it but quickly....
I'm not under any illusion that it’s all rainbows and unicorns; I’m not a millennial and I just celebrated my 21st year in this wondrously glamorous career but your view, respectfully, is clouded by events of 20 years ago. It’s a view that many who haven’t worked here have and I do understand why.
US aviation was a very different animal in the years leading up to and post 9-11. The legacies had been mismanaged in an almost criminal way for years and 9-11 was the proverbial straw. I was here during that time and I’ve had many 2am chats somewhere over the Atlantic about it with guys that are are trying to make up for it, so I’m very aware of the pain that that time caused. Your quote is by a US airways pilot. A group that couldn’t have been more affected by what happened during that time and lost pretty much everything, not least pay and then seniority with a merger they tried to fight. For them it was the perfect storm of pain.
The legacies are now run by a very different breed and at least here, they do seem to have learnt from the past. Certainly from what I’ve seen and had the current sh!tstorm not happened, I think they would have continued on the path of constant improvement.
The question I responded to was “would you want to work in US aviation”. My reply was looking through the lenses of post 2010, pre Covid-19 and yet mindful of the events of 20 years ago. It obviously wasn’t the place to be before then because I went through the nightmare of moving thousands of miles and starting at a new airline on a different continent. Had it not changed, I wouldn’t have then gone through that same nightmare again but for me, it was more about the pension and that I could afford to live where I wanted to, rather than where I could simply afford to. It should be pointed out that pensions are no longer controlled by the airlines.
I've always approached a job here, with the mindset that it could all disappear in a heartbeat but the irony is, had I stayed in Oz I would be out of a job and probably not have a roof over my head. I don’t have a McMansion, while german my cars aren’t brand new and I’m a bit OCD with saving money for a rainy day, so at this point I could be out of work for two years and still pay all the bills. I am extremely lucky, I know that and I speak weekly to my mates at VA, so I’m acutely aware of what an absolute nightmare it is downunder at the moment.
That’s the professional viewpoint. From a personal point of view, of course I wish I could bring my kids up in Oz or Euroland but it would come at a huge financial cost that I don’t have the years for. Hopefully, we all make the best decisions we can, considering all the information we have. As you said, the next 5 years will be interesting.
Now back to JQ and apologies for the thread drift.
Last edited by Kenny; 13th Jan 2021 at 17:45.