Hey Chuch416:
I have to be honest, I don’t understand SIC. For me SIC means Second Officer or FE and I am sure you are not old enough to know (or use) that terminology
Now for your DEC qualifications? I do not know what you mean by SIC? Is this PIC time? If it is you can get a job as Captain in 24 hours – we need to hire hundreds. If it is F/O time well then you would probably come on (in 24 hours) as a F/O. If it is second officer or flight engineer time – training time - well you may have a problem.
Now for ABY! With the new pay scale it is a well paid job. It is possible for a Captain to make $16-$17K a month. YES it is hard flying, very hard and you do not have the life you would have at EK or EY but you can make the cash – if that is what you want! The negative is that you will make $13K whether you want to or not – we fly hard. However, a new hired Capt with a couple thousand hours in the left seat will make $11K a month while on vacation for 30 days and not flying 1 hour.
The future of the company is – well a crystal ball. Currently we have 14-15 planes (I don't know if "November" came yet,) but when I came here we had 2. We have about 200 pilots now with hiring plans for hundreds more by Jan 2010. 34 planes are on the books by 2012-14 but that is already exceeded. We are picking up planes from Vueling all the time - we bought 4 from them the last few months that were not in ABY’s plans 12 months ago.
Now your statement implies you have been around for a while. Yes it is not bad for kids and the school allowance is only a 100K a year and inflation is crazy. But what do you want? If you have the PIC time I personally believe (and that is all it is, my belief) you can get hired ASAP – but remember it will never be NWA!
Burners and Out!