Northbeach
16th Jul 2012, 18:18
So you are considering walking away from what you are doing now and becoming a pilot or you are still young and considering the pilot career. Here are some thoughts after 3 decades in the industry.
The demand for pilots mirrors the economy. When things are in bad shape it is almost impossible to get a job. If you do have a job at an airline you may be “furloughed”. The company says in effect “sorry it didn’t work out we don’t need you anymore best of luck with the rest of your life and goodbye. We will call you back and offer you your old job if we need you-see ya chump.” If anybody is hiring during a recession the requirements go through the roof.
When things turn around, suddenly there is a shortage of pilots and airlines are crying for a warm body to put into the seat. Since 9-11 we have seen both extremes.
The first 3 years I was married I was out of work twice as two different airlines went out of business. The second time coincided with us expecting our first child and I had neither job nor medical insurance. I’m sure my mother in law thought her daughter had married a real loser who couldn’t hold a job as I had been “furloughed” twice.
Compensation is usually awful and remains so for many years as you pay your dues. As you are working your way up the experience ladder your employer knows that you are there for the experience. They ALL exploit you - because they can.
It is common to make $12,000 to $18,000 a year; it might be a little more now but not much. Do the research; starting pay for flight instructors, cargo, commuters and most corporate flight departments is miniscule. You will pay your dues for many years. However cost of getting your ratings is very expensive.
Even at the major airline I work for my first year I made $23,000. The following year they took $1,000 back from me because they had inadvertently “overpaid” me.
If you are motivated by money then I would emphatically recommend that you do not get into aviation. There are much higher paying professions. Go to law school, take up finance or find some niche and go into business for yourself.
Some of the pilots I fly with had other careers. Some were physicians and got out of medicine because they wanted to fly. Others are married to physicians who are experiencing some of the same pressures we as pilots are. As a pilot or physician you work for the airline or HMO, the corporation is looking for ways to minimize your compensation and maximize your utilization. They are not going to pay you what you think you are worth or what you think you should make.
So, if you do get into aviation then you had better adopt a street fighter mentality because you are going to have to fight for your pay, benefits and work rules. And that is a problem with many of us, we think of ourselves as “professionals” and just want to do our jobs and be compensated well for that.
I’ve LOST hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last several years due to a legally imposed concessionary contract. And my employer tried to take away my retirement through binding arbitration. We are not in bankruptcy mind you, in fact we are having record quarterly profits – they “went for it”. Many pilots saw their retirement legally stolen from them and are working for a small percentage of what they were paid prior to 9-11. You can be certain that our financial pain was not shared by upper management ranks or the bankruptcy attorneys who brokered the deals.
As a pilot you are limited to flying 1,000 hours a year (different regulations in different parts of the world). Do the math for yourself, it comes to flying a maximum of 83 hours a month. With vacation and training factored in most airlines build their schedules to around 85 hours of flying a month. At my base we have about 275 possible schedules for the airplane I fly. They are all build to around 85 hours of flight time. The difference is in the number of days off. Some schedules have as many as 18 days off others have as few as 11 days off. Schedules are awarded based on seniority.
But as a junior pilot you will not have a schedule you will be a reserve pilot- for years…. Meaning you will be on call for about 15 hours a day to fill in when the need arises. You will have the minimum number of days off, at our airline that is 11 days off a month. When you do get a call, and it happens almost every day you are available, you can be gone for as little as one day or as many as six. When you are gone your two day trip can turn into a 5 day trip. I am a junior captain at my airline and have been on reserve, as a captain, for 7 years. In 7 years I have only had a set schedule 4 times-4 out of 84 months.
It makes me sick to read “news” accounts of pilots only flying 75 hours a month. Those numbers make intentionally make it look like you work less than 2 regular 40 hour weeks. What is deliberately left out of that number is the 12 to 14 hour duty day including many hours sitting at some airport waiting for another airplane to come in, and all the time spent getting ready for the flight. A running joke in my family is that my wife and I have been married for nearly 24 years, but it has only really been 11 years because I am gone more than half the time.
When I was a young person the airline captain was a respected professional. That has changed; culturally we don’t seem to respect pilots much any more. “glorified bus driver” is a term I hear. If you want “respect” then become successful in the entertainment industry, politics or make a ton of money somewhere else. Respect comes with money & power, not with a polyester airline pilot uniform.
Now for the other side of the discussion; as a pilot you will never know the prison of being trapped by 4 walls shuffling through stacks of never ending paper. Every day is different, every flight is different. The view out of your window defies explanation. You will see beauty most people never dream of.
When you close the flight deck door and push back from the gate you leave most of the bad stuff behind you. It is you and your flying partner, a 50-100 or more million dollar jetliner, the latest in technology (if you are fortunate to fly a new jet) and a thousand miles of wide open airspace ahead of you with all of the opportunities and hazards it can contain. This isn’t “Groundhog day” or like watching the same movie over and over where everything is scripted and the outcome is predictable. What you are about to do is REAL and unscripted outside your flightdeck, the outcome of your flight is what you make of it.
Most people in the world avoid risk. They hire attorneys to shield them from it, take out insurance to mitigate its damage, and bury themselves under layers of bureaucracy to hide from it. You on the other hand will directly shoulder the responsibility for the safety of several hundred people. You work in a complex, rapidly moving and constantly changing three dimensional world.
I am a second generation airline employee; my father gave 36 years of his life to his airline (PanAm/Operations). I am past 50 now and it has been a great ride. However, I recognize that as a profession we are in for a long bitter battle. We have 3 children and I would not recommend any of them get into flying for a living.
The answer to the question of whether or not one should “go for it” and become a commercial pilot is more complex than “it’s great” or “it stinks dude do something else”. It depends on your motivation, expectations, temperament, risk tolerance and financial needs.
I have seen more than one coworker buried leaving behind a grieving young wife and a few devastated kids with little or no financial resources because he got killed trying to gain experience. If you need a steady paycheck, a predictable career path, weekends and federal holidays off then it isn’t the job for you.
If on the other hand you have the disposition of a linebacker, have tungsten for a spine, are not afraid of responsibility, demand nothing but the best from yourself and everybody else around you; and you are prepared to ride out the best and worst of times with no guarantee of a happy financial ending and you can’t possibly see yourself doing anything else for a living then welcome aboard. It would be a privilege to share the flight deck with you.
The demand for pilots mirrors the economy. When things are in bad shape it is almost impossible to get a job. If you do have a job at an airline you may be “furloughed”. The company says in effect “sorry it didn’t work out we don’t need you anymore best of luck with the rest of your life and goodbye. We will call you back and offer you your old job if we need you-see ya chump.” If anybody is hiring during a recession the requirements go through the roof.
When things turn around, suddenly there is a shortage of pilots and airlines are crying for a warm body to put into the seat. Since 9-11 we have seen both extremes.
The first 3 years I was married I was out of work twice as two different airlines went out of business. The second time coincided with us expecting our first child and I had neither job nor medical insurance. I’m sure my mother in law thought her daughter had married a real loser who couldn’t hold a job as I had been “furloughed” twice.
Compensation is usually awful and remains so for many years as you pay your dues. As you are working your way up the experience ladder your employer knows that you are there for the experience. They ALL exploit you - because they can.
It is common to make $12,000 to $18,000 a year; it might be a little more now but not much. Do the research; starting pay for flight instructors, cargo, commuters and most corporate flight departments is miniscule. You will pay your dues for many years. However cost of getting your ratings is very expensive.
Even at the major airline I work for my first year I made $23,000. The following year they took $1,000 back from me because they had inadvertently “overpaid” me.
If you are motivated by money then I would emphatically recommend that you do not get into aviation. There are much higher paying professions. Go to law school, take up finance or find some niche and go into business for yourself.
Some of the pilots I fly with had other careers. Some were physicians and got out of medicine because they wanted to fly. Others are married to physicians who are experiencing some of the same pressures we as pilots are. As a pilot or physician you work for the airline or HMO, the corporation is looking for ways to minimize your compensation and maximize your utilization. They are not going to pay you what you think you are worth or what you think you should make.
So, if you do get into aviation then you had better adopt a street fighter mentality because you are going to have to fight for your pay, benefits and work rules. And that is a problem with many of us, we think of ourselves as “professionals” and just want to do our jobs and be compensated well for that.
I’ve LOST hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last several years due to a legally imposed concessionary contract. And my employer tried to take away my retirement through binding arbitration. We are not in bankruptcy mind you, in fact we are having record quarterly profits – they “went for it”. Many pilots saw their retirement legally stolen from them and are working for a small percentage of what they were paid prior to 9-11. You can be certain that our financial pain was not shared by upper management ranks or the bankruptcy attorneys who brokered the deals.
As a pilot you are limited to flying 1,000 hours a year (different regulations in different parts of the world). Do the math for yourself, it comes to flying a maximum of 83 hours a month. With vacation and training factored in most airlines build their schedules to around 85 hours of flying a month. At my base we have about 275 possible schedules for the airplane I fly. They are all build to around 85 hours of flight time. The difference is in the number of days off. Some schedules have as many as 18 days off others have as few as 11 days off. Schedules are awarded based on seniority.
But as a junior pilot you will not have a schedule you will be a reserve pilot- for years…. Meaning you will be on call for about 15 hours a day to fill in when the need arises. You will have the minimum number of days off, at our airline that is 11 days off a month. When you do get a call, and it happens almost every day you are available, you can be gone for as little as one day or as many as six. When you are gone your two day trip can turn into a 5 day trip. I am a junior captain at my airline and have been on reserve, as a captain, for 7 years. In 7 years I have only had a set schedule 4 times-4 out of 84 months.
It makes me sick to read “news” accounts of pilots only flying 75 hours a month. Those numbers make intentionally make it look like you work less than 2 regular 40 hour weeks. What is deliberately left out of that number is the 12 to 14 hour duty day including many hours sitting at some airport waiting for another airplane to come in, and all the time spent getting ready for the flight. A running joke in my family is that my wife and I have been married for nearly 24 years, but it has only really been 11 years because I am gone more than half the time.
When I was a young person the airline captain was a respected professional. That has changed; culturally we don’t seem to respect pilots much any more. “glorified bus driver” is a term I hear. If you want “respect” then become successful in the entertainment industry, politics or make a ton of money somewhere else. Respect comes with money & power, not with a polyester airline pilot uniform.
Now for the other side of the discussion; as a pilot you will never know the prison of being trapped by 4 walls shuffling through stacks of never ending paper. Every day is different, every flight is different. The view out of your window defies explanation. You will see beauty most people never dream of.
When you close the flight deck door and push back from the gate you leave most of the bad stuff behind you. It is you and your flying partner, a 50-100 or more million dollar jetliner, the latest in technology (if you are fortunate to fly a new jet) and a thousand miles of wide open airspace ahead of you with all of the opportunities and hazards it can contain. This isn’t “Groundhog day” or like watching the same movie over and over where everything is scripted and the outcome is predictable. What you are about to do is REAL and unscripted outside your flightdeck, the outcome of your flight is what you make of it.
Most people in the world avoid risk. They hire attorneys to shield them from it, take out insurance to mitigate its damage, and bury themselves under layers of bureaucracy to hide from it. You on the other hand will directly shoulder the responsibility for the safety of several hundred people. You work in a complex, rapidly moving and constantly changing three dimensional world.
I am a second generation airline employee; my father gave 36 years of his life to his airline (PanAm/Operations). I am past 50 now and it has been a great ride. However, I recognize that as a profession we are in for a long bitter battle. We have 3 children and I would not recommend any of them get into flying for a living.
The answer to the question of whether or not one should “go for it” and become a commercial pilot is more complex than “it’s great” or “it stinks dude do something else”. It depends on your motivation, expectations, temperament, risk tolerance and financial needs.
I have seen more than one coworker buried leaving behind a grieving young wife and a few devastated kids with little or no financial resources because he got killed trying to gain experience. If you need a steady paycheck, a predictable career path, weekends and federal holidays off then it isn’t the job for you.
If on the other hand you have the disposition of a linebacker, have tungsten for a spine, are not afraid of responsibility, demand nothing but the best from yourself and everybody else around you; and you are prepared to ride out the best and worst of times with no guarantee of a happy financial ending and you can’t possibly see yourself doing anything else for a living then welcome aboard. It would be a privilege to share the flight deck with you.