Just how long exactly have people been waiting for their first job?

[A330ETOPS]

Hello, it's been over 2 years since i completed my integrated course at Jerez. Just wondering how long others have been waiting?

:ugh:

[2 Whites 2 Reds]

9 1/2 months and counting for me.......keep plugging away A330, things are gradually improving.

Best of luck.

2W2R :ok:

[A330ETOPS]

we'll get there in the end & i'll make sure i say no to P2F all the way!


A330

[2 Whites 2 Reds]

Yeah hopefully.....I too will never go down the P2F route....not just because I totally disagree with it but I haven't got the money in the first place!!! :(

2W2R :ok:

[mad_jock]

Well for a start all those that have payed for a JOC have not only pissed money into the wind but also cut themselves off for any turboprop jobs.

There are a few jobs kicking about TP wise both skippers and FO's but none that would ever consider a less than 200 hour intergrated bod. I think we have a 2000 hour FI starting soon once he has completed the sim.

I get to pick and choose CV's so any intergrated (which there is a bloody lot actually for a **** kicking TP outfit) get dumped in the bucket. Even a 1000 houred instructors are now getting to look low houred. And how do you go for a pilot that has more hours than myself for a FO job when I am a LTC?

[Dane-Ger]

But define first job?

I started working three months after completing my CPL and IR doing GA work, I work freelance for three different companies all on SEP.

I actually get paid (although very little) and love the flying and experience I'm gaining, does this count as work though, for some it's not a "proper" job before it's on the right seat of a jet!

[SV_741_India_Bravo]

2.5 yrs no work, back to univ and getting my master's degree.

[corporate_pilot]

'those that have payed for a JOC have not only pissed money into the wind but also cut themselves off for any turboprop jobs.'

Mad_Jock, is this actually the case? Was thinking of going for a MCC with JOC, but do turboprop recruiters see it as a problem?

[Finals19]

2.5 years since licence conversion from Canadian CPL/ME/IR. Previously gained 800 hours air taxi experience. One job offer in that time which I graciously declined for various valid reasons...

Keeping my eye on TP operators but the hiring pot still seems pretty dry :sad:

[norton2005]

Im at 1 year and 4 months now. Sucks!!!!

[vish02]

1 year and 6 months...

[flymetothemoon06]

2 years this month since MCC.......

[Nearly There]

Finished MCC Feb 08, 2 'nearly' jobs, but both operators went tits up..so 2.5ish years:ugh:

[james1013]

Finish MCC Sept 08, so 2 years.

[BUGS/BEARINGS/BOXES]

Avoid P2F like the plague! It is only the most likely way in if people are either to stupid (lack of thinking ahead) or too rich to stop and bring this damaging practice to an end. I myself have been present in a sim assesment, where a candidate that had no real hope of successfully completing a 737TR first time, was graded a training risk, only to have this over turned. reason? excess sim availability and the ability to get more money out of the candidate when they would need to repeat sim sessions! The management of airlines consists of bean counters. They are only interested in lowering the bottom line. This also applies to recruitment. Sadly most airlines have allowed HR departments to completly cock the selection system up. P2F lowers safety. Any monkey who scrapped through a CPL/IR can apply and probably be selected. Its an almost no risk position the airline finds itself in. The student takes all the financial risk. The candidate, if really unsuitable, can be dropped at any time.
On another note, paying for an MCC/JOC course is not a waste of time. If you have a fATPL and want to sharpen your skills for the enviroment in which you wish to be employed (multi-crew) then there is no reason why not to. Most sims are of a level that enables you to get some handling practice of a swept wing, high performance jet. Far more practical experience than bombing around in a C152 hours building, although staying current in terms of stick time is a must! Someone who has got some high performance aircraft sim time (JOC course) and some light aircraft stick time and kept 'Current' stands a far higher chance of employment than someone who has sat on their arse for 2 years, only keeping their IR and medical current. Got an Air Cadets gliding SQN near by? Become a Civi Gliding Instructor. Training is free, expenses for travel and subsistence are paid for and after 7 hours on a TMG you can do a check ride, get a TMG rating and hey presto, you can revalidate your SEP rating at the same time.
As the Middle East and Asia recruit. so airlines higer up in the pecking order in the UK need to recruit. This means those in the regional sector looking to move upwards will be able to do so. The regionals will always need to recruit when the cycle gets going full swing.

[UAV689]

Interesting thread, I hope to be training come new year for cpl/ir.

If people don't mind me asking when it was clear 2 years ago this ****e depression was here to last did you not believe it or to far already down training to stop.

Are you all working else where at moment and keeping up with loan payments?

Keep plugging away, good luck to you all.

[NunoVasco]

1 Year and 2 months...back to university...

[A330ETOPS]

Luckily i had my self employment to fall back on, and am earning more than the average first officer in what i'm doing now, but i don't really enjoy it anymore, as i just want to fly! I'm managing to pay my 4 loans off each month and to get 2 hours a week flying in, which i have been for the past 12 months.

Unfortunately it's only single engine time. I did look at maybe flying 1hr multi a week, but decided to stick to the SEP stuff :ugh:

[Flying Squid]

Totally agree with B/B/B...... just keeping the IR and Medical valid won't cut alot of ice when things pick up. I couldn't afford to hire even a 152 having some nice loan repayments to make etc so I know what it's like. Managed to get a Cabin Crew job with a major UK outfit and shortly after volunteered with a company down the road doing some part time instructing with the public on 737 and 747 full motion sims.(red letter day type stuff). No pay initially but a nice way to spend my days off from Cabin Crew and valuable full flight jet sim experience. Then after a month or so managed to get taken on full time and thats me for now.

Money :(
Experience :):):):):)
Fun :):):):):):):):):)

[MKA742]

1 month.

Finished in November 2008 after the crisis hit (I would have gotten a job on a Avro or A300 if it was a few months earlier).
I decided that Europe held no promise for me and went on adventure in Africa. Got a job there 2 days after I arrived.

Best desicion I ever made!

It's not a jet job but I came to realize that getting on a jet straight away is like having dessert first. Quite happy in my Cessna 210 over magnificent Africa!!

[Tunfisk]

Soon 2 years since I got laid off.
Have not heard anything yet..
Hope starting to fade away.

[wangus]

Finished IR in Feb. 2008, started applying right away, and finished MCC in May 2008. Was full of optimism, always smiling, thought the tough times were past, and the "fantasy" dream job awaited. 2 years and 7 months on from 1st time pass of the IR with Examiner 001 in Bournemouth, NOT ONE INTERVIEW, even FR won't look at me, despite contacts in the industry en masse.
31 months and counting............:ugh:
WWW really is the oracle. I should have listened to him.:*

[UAV689]

I listened to WWW, and working in buisness currently and seeing how dire it was/is I could see he was 100% bang on the money.

I feel for those of you that thought you desire for the job would see you through, but you were warned!

Trouble is I feel it will get worse from here on in again, that this is a bit of a false dawn. As soon as they start culling the public sector, more people out of work, QE finishing...still a storm brewing.

My biggest concern is with base rate at 0.5 and mortgage rates no where near that low what will happen when base rate starts to creep up...less money to spend, holidays get cancelled again..

[EMU-170]

Well I just felt like sharing my experience for anyone out there willing to listen. I spent nearly 50k to get myself a frozen ATPL, MCC/JOC. It is coming up to two years in Nov 2010 and I have had no luck in getting a job as a airline pilot. I did go to ryanair for an interview but did not get it. And this was in my first month of qualifying fresh out of training. I asked myself why I did not get it, the truth is I will never now, but I though it went very well.

All I want to say is if there is anyone out there thinking of pursuing this career, PLEASE DON'T it's a mugs game. Some people get jobs, majority do not, that’s a fact.

I am lucky in a way as I have secured a job as a train driver, but I have to live with the fact I wasted 50 k, I could have bought a nice car or put a deposit down on a house with that.

Well good luck to all you fellow pilots out there, I sincerely do wish you all the best of luck.

[Luke SkyToddler]

How many of you lot have actually done something about getting a job ... rather than "applying" for them and whinging about how long you've been unemployed for?

Myself and a good mate of mine, got ourselves from 200 up to around 700 hours, by sitting on a little booth that we rented every saturday, in the biggest saturday flea market / car boot sale thing in Auckland, with some "learn to fly" signwriting we paid for ourselves, a video player and some model airplanes, selling "trial lessons". Typically generated about 5 20-minute trial lessons a week, of which maybe one a month would turn into a genuine PPL student.

Getting paid wasn't even a consideration. However after about 18 months of this, we had created about 500 hours flying and an ongoing little PPL customer database for ourselves, and the school was sufficiently impressed with our tenaciousness to actually give us the occasional student themselves.

After another 3 years of instructing I finally got turned loose on the multi pistons and actually started on my SALARY instead of my hourly rate, what a day to remember that was! 18 months of that and I got my first turboprop and the rest is history. I'm now on the A330 in the sandpit and that mate I used to flog trial lessons with, is on the B744 with Cathay.

Just because the airline market is ****ed doesn't mean there isn't a million and one ways to keep on filling the logbook. And if you keep filling it and don't lose sight of your end goal then someone will surely reward you one day.

At the end of the day, being successful in this business is not about who's the best, and not even about who's the richest, it's about who wants it the most and refuses to give up in the face of all adversity.

[humanperformer]

3 months - extremely lucky although even the airline that i would for has stopped recruiting non-typed fo's :sad:

[BUGS/BEARINGS/BOXES]

Well posted luke! I would imagine all those who are like yourself and want it really badly are not wasting their time on pprune, they are doing something about it! :ok:

[Uncle Wiggily]

At the end of the day, being successful in this business is not about who's the best, and not even about who's the richest, it's about who wants it the most and refuses to give up in the face of all adversity

Remember one thing my friend: If life hands you lemons then make lemonade, BUT if you don't have some sugar then your lemonade is going to suck.

[Uncle Wiggily]

Luke: You leave out a very important point and that is the rules of the game have changed since you and Jonny were selling lemonade and mommy's fresh baked treats on the side of the street.

OK. A young person becomes an instructor and aquires thousands of hours teaching others to fly the Piper Seneca or C-172. So frickin' what. Ten years ago that counted as experience. Today that counts as a huge waste of time. Why? Because airlines hiring today don't give a rat's ass about that. They want a person who can fork over thousands to pay for their job AND/OR you have the correct type of hours, i.e. you have a Type Rating and a min. of a few hundred hours in TYPE.

Hey man, I think going out there and teaching Susie VMC demos is great....but that is not going to get you the job in TODAY'S MARKET!

So I'm assuming you fly for Emirates, Ethiad, Qatar, Gulf....etc, or one of those 8 star airlines. Fantastic. Congrats. Seriously, that's great how you climbed the ladder: SEP, MEP, Turboprop, Jet. This is the way it used to be done and I personally wish that is the way it was today. However, wishing and reality are apples and oranges, comrade.

I know you mean well, but blowing sunshine up the asses of some of these guys is unrealistic in TODAYS methodology of aquiring pilot employment.

Regards,
UW

[fcom]

Back in 1990 when I completed my course at OATS there were nearly 600 pilots on the ground,it took me 4 years to get a job but we all eventually got in the air. I was in for over 65K and that was 20 years ago, so don't worry as long as your not in your late thirties with low hours:ok: you will get hired.

[atlantique]

The airline industry has fundamentally changed over the last few years and they are making the most of the people going blindly in to aviation training establishments... The practice of opening up ones wallet to these establishment with no comeback needs to stop!
The only way the industry will sort it's self out is if young guys and girls stop going in to the industry with blind hope and thinking that £60k later they will have a job, that is not the case and has never really been the case. If airlines are forced to restart sponsorship schemes then the industry and young pilots will be all the better for it (Skills/quality and financially).
I was extremely lucky in the start of my career and got a sponsorship but was meeting a lot of self sponsored pilots, of them only a handful have made it.... Sadly that wasn't always the best pilots, most were just lucky with their timing...
The other gamble is keeping a job, the industry is very fickle, companies come and go. This means that the £60k gamble doesn't make sense, people need to look at training to be a pilot with a business head on and not watching 'Catch me if you can'. When you look at the numbers they are stacked in the industries favour hugely!
If you are in the category that has to fly whatever then do things slow time and don't get yourself in to £60k of debt or ask family members for the money, there is a very real probability they will not get the money back from flying....
I am not wishing to sound overly negative, i believe i am being a realist... I had a privileged start in aviation but it has been a very bumpy road since, I've been made redundant once already and starring in to the face of another redundancy now less than a year on....

'At some point you have to call time on the dream and move on...'

[fade to grey]

I feel for you guys, but I don't think everyone will make it to an airliner seat to be honest.The quantity out there now is too much and despite passing a CPL/IR some just won't be deemed suitable.

At least when i did it my licence cost 13,000, I wouldn't dream of gambling 80 -100k on a 'dream' now.

[MIKECR]

Well I wouldnt discount the likes of the FI route completely. Of the last 10 or so FO's we've taken on this year, 7 or 8 were all FI's looking for their first airline job. Perhaps not the norm in todays current market but refreshing non the less.

[CAT3C AUTOLAND]

From finishing my CPL/IR took me 4 years to get my first job, and thoroughly enjoying it.

EMU-170

All I want to say is if there is anyone out there thinking of pursuing this career, PLEASE DON'T it's a mugs game. Some people get jobs, majority do not, that’s a fact.


Not sure I agree with that. Everyone on my ATPL course is now working as a professional pilot.

When you start your training you MUST understand what you are getting yourself into in terms of finance, training, job hunting, and have a back up plan! There are so many people I talk to that just dont thoroughly research and understand what they are getting into, and become dazed and disheartened, when they dont find themselves in the right hand seat of a Jet after graduating with 200 hours :ugh:.

[Luke SkyToddler]

Wiggily ...

I feel your pain dude. "Today's market" is indeed hopelessly screwed in favour of the 200 hour P2F brigade. The only jobs going right now are garbage, O'leary's mob and the Ezy flexi-screw and so on. And if you believe what the schools WANT you to believe, it is the only way in town and it will stay that way forever.

But ... I don't believe that the market has changed forever. Look at what's happening right now in the states, the politicians have pretty much legislated low-hour-RHS jobs out of existence in one fell swoop. And, I'm not talking about "today's market". I'm talking about the market that will return in 2 or 3 years (barring another global calamity or what have you).

I will bet my left nut, that there are still plenty of chief pilots out there who still value old-skool hours and experience gained by traditional methods. The problem is simply, that a lot of them work for airlines that haven't hired for 3 or 4 years. A lot of others, when they have hired, it's been only one or two people, who've been friends of friends who've grooming their target for years while they patiently built those hours.

But as sure as people retire, and global financial crises come and go and the price of oil rises and falls, those kind of airlines will hire again. They won't be widely advertising in Flight and they sure as eggs won't be running to OATS or CTC to start flogging ridiculous P2F schemes.

They won't be hiring 200 hour wonders either, whether they have type ratings and deep pockets or not ... they will be hiring those people who are grinding it out right now in smaller aircraft and really learning their trade.

It takes 2 or 3 or 5 years to get meaningful 4-figure sums of hours in the logbook anyway.

So the question is, if you are not willing to participate in "today's market" as a 200 hour bend-over-and-squeal boy (a decision which I heartily applaud!), then are you going to go out there and get ready to participate in tomorrow's market by staying current and getting some damn hours in that logbook by any means necessary?

One thing is for sure, if I had sat on my fat ass 20 years ago with 200 hours doing nothing except "applying to airlines", I would still have 200 hours now.

[Token Bird]

I've been looking for nearly six years. Worked 3 years full-time as an instructor and part-time before that. 1700 hours TT. Currently working outside of aviation (doing an awful job that I hate) since the flying school I was working for closed down. Training debts are crippling. Haven't had a life since I gave up work to train to become a pilot in 2001. Worst mistake I ever made.

[gone till november]

From issue of Frozen ATPL to first "real" job just under 7 years to first paid job.....instructing......4 years.

Came close a couple of times with interview but my lack of currency let me down.

Best way to get a job is NETWORKING.

Good luck to you all