I work for one of these companies, flying King Airs. I have been flying King Airs for FAR TOO BLOODY LONG now.
Sure, it's great to do for a couple of years, and the first 2 years I had batting around Europe, doing VFR when I could, earning reasonably decent money, was great. But then I started to want a proper job.
To cut a long story short, I can't get a "proper" job, basically because it's cheaper for EZY and RYR to employ people straight out of flying school than to employ people like me. Being the "wrong side of 30", and the "wrong side of 300 hours", I'm now a training risk. Funny how the goalposts have moved since I finished my training. I now cannot advance in my career, and for me the only option if I'm ever to hit a salary of £100K (which is my intention by the time I'm 40) is to change career.
Trust me, if you want a job that "means something" (like mine), you need to accept everything else that goes with it:
- working for a company where there are no career prospects
- a really lax attitude towards Flight Duty Periods
- no union recognition, meaning that the pay will be sh*t
- no other benefits
So I very much "like" the poster above who recommended taking out a month's salary in cash and staring at it until your desire to have a job like mine goes away.