I have been doing this for nearly 40 years and it is really quite simple.
It is all about glamour!
All this BS you read about..."I do it for the love of flying....."
Whether you love flying or loathe it, the motivation for being a "
real live Airline pilot" was always about the glamour. I rode a fantastic career that was the last big surf wave from the 1970's through to today. The job of an airline pilot in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's held a certain mystique and cachet. It was a vocation that automatically garnered respect, a sense of adventure, travel to exotic locations, good remuneration at the top tiers, and a transformation from being the skinny kid in the
Charles Atlas adverts to somebody that even old Charley himself would look up to with admiration and envy.
From an aspirational standpoint, it was the job that ex-military pilots sought to pad out and feather their post service years.
Let the good times roll! Even though (even in those days) it was often routine and ordinary, that was never the public perception. Never the perception your neighbours had, and remained one of the dream jobs of every school
boy (times have changed!)
The last decade of the Twentieth century and certainly the first two decades of this one brought with it a number of sea changes. Firstly the mystique was stripped away. The Royal family made this mistake when some of the younger members decide to become more accessible to the people. Once the mystique was gone, everybody then wondered why they were holding these people in such awe. In our case we did it to ourselves. As we proudly showed anyone with even a passing interest just how we could fly a 150 ton jet with only our little finger, those same people did begin to wonder just how difficult this really was, and why we were being paid so much to do it.
The Nineties brought an accelerating growth in travel for the masses. Peoples Express, Laker, and others, cemented the perception in the public psyche that this was simply an aerial bus service. Turn up with £99 or $199 and the world was your oyster as long as you didn't plan on eating oysters as part of the service provided. Then as the new millennium drew close, so came the concept of the "lo-Co's." In the USA and Europe the concept of short haul travel for the price of a pair of Levi's. Ambitious "Shock-Jock" and media savvy CEO's who had no problem using TV reality shows to promote a business idea that had an eager and hungry ready market. The "I only fly British Airways" brigade, could assuage any potential embarrassment at dinner parties by openly bragging of their trophy achievement of flying to Rome for only £19.95. Coupled with the huge market of those who couldn't care less as long as the price was right, and the writing was on the wall in letters Twelve feet high! If glamour was firmly out of fashion for the customer, it wouldn't be long before it wasn't going to be in evidence on the other side of the flight deck door.
It all started innocently enough. A new "low cost" (whatever that really meant) Irish airline offering jobs on a small fleet of old 737's and BAC 111's.
Earn a hundred grand and sleep in your own bed every night said the ad's. What wasn't there to like for those made redundant from the collapse of Dan-Air, Air Europe, Laker,
et al? Send fifty quid to have your CV read was maybe a little tacky, but we could live with it. Then came the "shock" pronouncements from the new generation of celebrity CEO's. Outrageous (often purely entertainment) press conferences where, planes would fly with one pilot or no toilets, or standing room only, but underlying it would be the suggestion that it was to champion the consumers insatiable demand for ever cheaper flights.
The infomercial/reality TV programmes became long running (and very popular) soap operas that stripped away the last vestiges of mystique, respect, kudos, and glamour that had ever been inherent in the job of the
Airline pilot. Together with a world that now had a camera (phone) in every pocket, the job was stripped naked, and laid bare for everybody to see.
Then came the economic realities of the same period. CEO's became the new celebrity capitalists. The new mystique, kudos, respect and glamour, shifted firmly into the ostentatious displays of huge wealth that were often portrayed in the media. The rewards and glamour were concentrated in the pockets of those that controlled the businesses.
Despite these realities, there was still a solid belief in the minds of many would be pilots, that it was all temporary and would go away eventually. We would turn the clock back to the Sixties and the perceived glamour of the job would return. Our neighbours would envy us and the public would respect our every utterance. It was delusional. The world had changed for ever. It would and will continue to change, but that particular genie is never again going to return to the bottle!
As with any boom, it all got somehow easier, and there was a massive rush to become a part of something that was simply becoming extinct. As the licensing requirements all
appeared to get easier and easier, so thousands and thousands of new hopefuls flocked to the temple. For most it proved a bitter disappointment. For the successful minority, the new realities often failed to mesh with the perceived expectations. For those further up the beach, it took longer for the tide to reach them, but reach them it did!
The idea of regulation is nonsense. That idea died in the Nineties! The public (and the politicians elected by them,) have absolutely no appetite for anything seen as restrictive and anti-competitive. The job has changed, and in many respects it has changed forever. The glamour is just too embarrassing for most to admit, but it is and always was the primary driver for this job. It is what made it every schoolboys dream.
I will always consider myself supremely lucky to have had the chance to ride that wave. Now the wave has broken on the shore and the sea is very calm (and not particularly warm or blue!) Oh well!