By the way I am a captain and earning a salary that I was paid in 2001, but happy to be working. With the way the roster is I don't have time to take a second job.
As a U.S. based Captain earning the same hourly rate as in
1991, with 18 flight days scheduled per month, and no more pension, I do not have the time to work a second job either, nor did I think I would ever need to!
Throw in the fact that it costs $200,000 to go through the university flight program I attended and one comes out the other end with about 250 hours of actual light aircraft flight time and some sim "experience," and one wonders who would EVER do this again?
The new hire FO position at my airline pays about $32,000 (~£19,000), we have just laid off the 1500 pilots (again) whose 12 years of experience were insufficient (not to mention their military careers or years of regional carrier experience!), grounded our 100 aircraft fleet of 737-300/500s, and entered into an international outsourcing agreement with Aer Lingus, who has ALSO just grounded aircraft and laid off about 500 pilots!!!
Throw in the fact that over 50% of the domestic flying at United Airlines is done by OUTSOURCED REGIONAL CARRIERS operating under a fee-for-departure system, and paying their pilots what that Colgan crew was getting, and there is clearly NO REASON for ANY reasonably intelligent person to EVER get involved in a flying CAREER ever again. Throw in the scheduling/rostering issues, and one would be FAR BETTER OFF getting a "real world" job and getting a 1/4 share of a light aircraft with at least one A&P owner and ENJOYING GOING FLYING when you want, to where you want.
Just sayin'
