I knew if I asked this question I would get someone saying "you dont sound motivated enough" blah blah blah or "you obviously very naive - go back to bed and carry on dreaming"....
I'm up at 0600 every day doing ATPL theory for 2 hrs before work, 1 hr at lunch, then 2hr in the eves like many others so my commitment is not an issue. I realise though I am completely ignorant of what the first year or two of airline work will actually be like - and I was hoping for a sensible answer to the question from someone.
All I read on PPruNE is people winging about their jobs...pay, conditions, mgt, pax etc - so sometime you think "heh, perhas I'm being naive here...flying professionally in todays commercial environment is just hard slog for little reward (financially or personally)"
I recently did my SEP rating prof check with a retired airline captain of 25k hrs. I asked him the same question to which his reply was that airline flying these days is, well, basically crap. All the decision making has been taking away from the pilots...and you're just biological extensions of the auto-pilot. Which is a worrying thing to hear frankly.
I was hoping for an accurate protrayal of the job warts and all. Will I be sitting up front sipping coffee watching the sunrise over the alps and thinking "this was worth it" or thinking "that guy was right - this is crap".