Hey, have you guys thought of alternative C) - DONT COME INTO THE INDUSTRY AT ALL!
For goodness sake look around you - SAS say they can employ pilots from across the Baltic for less than a third of what they pay their own now, BA is looking at a pay cut of circa 40% for its pilots if either of its plans of ending or career averaging pensions comes about. More and more airlines end up with their new FO's PAYING THEM to get line experience.
This is going to HAVE toi end up with airlines crewed by employees from VERY LOW cost countries indeed - think former Soviet Union, Jugoslavia, Indian sub-continent. Its just like the shipping industry - most ships are crewed by Taiwanese, Malays, Philippinos etc etc AS WAGES IN THESE COUNTRIES ARE VERY LOW. There is no other way.
And then we will have the problems the shipping industry has had - repetitive hull lossses. The bell at Lloyds rings for every loss - it rang every day for many years I am told. Countries will have to use "flags of convenience" wherever possible just to survive. They will be "convenient" because they are cheap and they will be cheap because their oversight is limited or nil, and so consequently costs less to be registered with. Its ALREADY here. No-one can seriously argue that the IAA rivals the CAA for thoroughness and oversight - so could that be why Ryanair has all its airliners registered there?
And what kind of life will you have when you get to your coveted jet job? Have you flown 900 hours a year longhaul or worse shorthaul year in year out for a potential thirty year career? You wont live to see it out! You wont have a family life, or indeed a life at all outside work!
I been in this industry all my working life and I have never seen cost pressures like I see now. It WILL get worse - how long before the next oil shock? Iran anyone? What hapens after another 9/11 style event, should it occur? Bird flu jumps the species gap and we have SARS mark II in Europe? Companies can not justify the investment made in them with returns as they are. the ONLY one who does is Ryan - that IS the future for all of us and most companies are looking at their methodology and thinking - that is the way we will HAVE to go.
I am THE worst paid of ALL my contempories by a very long way, and I fly a wide body with a major airline.
If you have the stamina, willpower and wit to qualify to fly an airliner there are many other careers you could do and i suggest now might just be the time to investigate them.
Things in professional aviaition will only improve when the costs cycle goes full circle:
Example: BP.
BP went "foreign flag" with all of its tanker capacity at sea. The whole industry did. Then the losses mounted - Exxon Valdeze, the tankers along the Brittany coastline who ran aground and broke up. The insurers were crucified. THEY eventually demanded a return to flags of registration where standards including deck officer pay were set and met. How long have you got in your potential flying career before the wheel goes full circle in professional aviation and the same cycle occurs here too?
You can hire a Pitts, Stampe or Cesnna Aerobat on a sunny day and fly. It might be better to sit this one out and get a job where you come home at night and watch your kids grow up and prosper. The airline business is one in cyclical decline and there is much worse to come yet. Do you really want to join this? The sort of institutionalised bullying that constitutes one of the keys to Ryanairs "success" is going to become routine throughout the industry if anyone is to compete with them. Who would willingly get themselves into this?
Last edited by ShortfinalFred; 7th Mar 2006 at 18:00.