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Thread: Am I too old?
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Old 13th Jun 2005, 10:26
  #3 (permalink)  
redsnail

PPRuNe Handmaiden
 
Join Date: Feb 1997
Location: Duit On Mon Dei
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wavey davey,

First of all good on you for managing to save the cash. I won't say definitely go for it or definitely don't go for it but there's a few caveats that you must pay attention to before spending the money.

This isn't the late 90's where there was a massive hiring boom of low houred pilots into jets. It's now the mid 00's where pay for rating deal is becoming the norm for the airlines that have taken relatively low houred pilots in the past.

By the time you finish you'll be about 36 years old and about 200 hours. While there's no official evidence out there, anecdotally, there's some reluctance of some companies in hiring late 30/early 40 year old low houred pilots. Of course, some do get hired but relative to the 25 year olds there isn't many.

Can you genuinely afford to take a pay cut for 3-5 or more years? Sure, the SFO easyJet pay is not bad and even the FO pay isn't bad but have you looked at what a turboprop FO will get paid? Can you afford to earn that for the 2-3 years it'll take for you to get your ATPL? This is on top of what you've already spent to get your license.

You'll see a few people posting saying that their mate got a jet job at 39 etc, but it's getting much harder in this environment. Yes, the industry is picking up which is great news for all but it is still very hard work for a newly minted CPL to get a job. What you'll rarely see are people posting about how hard it is for them to get a decent job.
People are very quiet about that.

Any way, I am not a flight instructor, I don't run a flying school nor a TRTO selling type ratings. In other words, I don't want your money.

It's your money, spend it wisely.
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