Too late for me, I got the MEIR put on my one-month-old CPL on Wednesday, complete with completentary full car search at Aviation House. My CV was just dropping on the doormats of many airlines on the day that the disaster happened.
I must admit that, after the sheer shock of Tuesday's events have died down, I'm now more than a little shellshocked regarding the implications of this and the Ansett collapse on the UK jobs market. It looks like things have gone from really quite rosy to completely pants overnight. Of course we won't know the full picture for a few months yet.
Luckily when compared to some my training debts are small and I have a solid back-up plan outside aviation (although I'm not sure if I can face a move back into IT).
For the time being I refuse to be forced out of the aviation industry before I've even properly joined it. I've made a conscious decision to change careers, every step has been carefully planned and gone into with my eyes open, so I'm b@ggered if the idiotic, murderous actions of a few extremist fools are going to deflect me from my goal.
Therefore my next step is to get an instructors rating and instruct (steps which were in the grand plan anyway prior to Tuesday). This will give time for things to settle down and be able to see what the near future holds for us all as wannabes.
All we can do is cross our fingers and hope.
The obvious number one knock-on effect of all this is a drop in transatlantic traffic which will hurt our long-haul airlines. What remains to be seen is how much the short haul and regional airlines further down the foodchain are affected. These are sensitive to the following three implications of the WTC disaster:
- a loss of interlining/feeder traffic from transatlantic flights;
- a drop in the public confidence in flying;
- a UK and European economic downturn caused by an acceleration of the US downturn after Tuesday's events.
On the plus side we should remember the BA retirement bulge has not been changed by last week's events and that this has the potential to act as a major cushion on any drop in pilot demand. This may be better news for those already with licenses than those seeking sponsorship.
Best of luck to all out there who are in a similar position to me at this time.
foggy.
[ 16 September 2001: Message edited by: foghorn ]