Long-term Prognosis
 

Forgive me a long first post here, please...

I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about the present state of play in air transport safety and likely effects of some influences upon the pilot workforce. In particular, I've been folllowing the recent IATA findings.

There's not a lot of good news on this site or elsewhere about employment as a professional pilot. I don't mean the prospects for those seeking work, I mean the way in which those working as flight deck crew feel that they are managed, rewarded, rested, and generally made to feel valued.

In recent years, there have been some reasonable steps forward towards improved safety, though these have often centred on technological solutions to known problems. Some have brought their own difficulties too: the Lake Constance mid-air would not have occurred without TCAS, but we don't know how many mid-airs it has prevented. The regulatory framework is coming under the spotlight more with the possibility of greater regulation of matters which have, until now, been at the discretion of the aircraft crew.

I am concerned that, as some parts of the safety framework move in a positive manner, the job of the professional aviator will be less attractive to able, intelligent, individuals (of whatever race, creed, culture, social standing), and we will find the average pilot to be a less effective problem-solver, less able to identify and arrest a developing error chain, less able to handle an aircraft accurately at a time of stress, and so on.

Crucially, will this, in the long term, mean more accidents?

In the short term, some able pilots may perform less well as a result of their demotivation. It is theoretically possible that some pilots may, for example, feel so dis-heartened, that they develop 'problems' which seriously affect their functioning in and out of work.

I acknowledge that I am dealing with many intangible factors, theorising from an individual perspective, and doing a little 'blue sky' thinking, if you like.

Am I wide of the mark? May we discuss?

I don't think you are wide of the mark Faustino.

The job has changed in nature quite a bit in recent years. Locked cockpit doors, management pressure in new forms, more intensive working patterns, less variety of aircraft to fly, more issues to dealwith.

It is the intangible factors that have added up to change the nature of the job in signifigant and subtle ways.

I don't believe it is long term career anymore. Who would want, for example, to spend thirty years flying for a low cost carrier?

Alternatively how about a career on the Airbus?

The complexities of operational problems will remain for agile minds to solve under pressure of time. However, my guess is that more discerning individuals will see it as a poor career option in terms of intensity of work and lifestyle.

Pilots in their thirties and forties will report back to youngsters with increasingly less enthusiasm. This will have an impact on the type of individual applying for sponsorship etc.

Further to that I think the airlines will increasingly structure the career to favour the younger pilot. Training payback schemes, earlier commands and moving on to other careers earlier will have an effect on career longevity.

You have raised a good debate; lets keep it going.

Thanks for the response, SoP.

I should have mentioned, that my concern is that we have been striving to take the next step forward in safety, as we did in the past when the industry moved from pistons to turboprops to jets, for example, and that this next order-of-magnitude improvement is proving elusive.

I wonder if these problems will make it unattainable?

Do I take it from the lack of interest in the thread that

(a) I'm off-target,

or,

(b) Apathy runs so deep that you don't even want to suggest I'm wrong?

Valid observations. - Worrying.

Faustino,

I would think quite the opposite: too close for comfort.
It has been on my mind for a while, would I still tell young wannabees that it's the best job in the world? I'm just not sure anymore..

I am inclined to agree with S76Heavy, you have hit the nail on the head and apart from agreeing with you there is not a lot to say, you have it in a nutshell.

Don't be disappointed by what you perceive as a lack of response, as I type 148 people have looked at this thread since you started it Faustino. I think you will find that the majority have nothing to add, a sad reflection on professional aviation today.

A crying shame that a thread that should run to several pages may not but had you mentioned something about Iraq, Princess Di. or Formula One it may have stayed front and centre for weeks!

My colleagues and I will have a think and maybe find a forum where you can get the responses you deserve, despite the fact that you selected wisely in the first place.

BlueEagle - Moderator.

Faustino - I think you are right on target and this is becoming one of the biggest flight safety issues to affect our profession.

I wish I had some clever answers but I have not.

I am only a 3 yr professional and have yet to fly for a major airline or in a jet at all. I am continuing on in my goal of a rewarding career in aviation on the assumption that we are in a low point in a cycle- the lowest point ever in aviation's history. I am counting on the fact that things will get better, and they will do so within 5 years. If not then I will most likely look for something else to do.

Having said that, viewing the conditions in Canada's large jet operators (there are not many) I am reluctant now to even bother setting any of them as a goal!

Air Canada and subsidiaries- poor morale and no esprit de corps, but good wages (to be made worse)
WestJet- excellent morale and decent compensation, but no international variety and stuck on one type "for life"
Jetsgo- Like westjet except minus the morale and compensation
Canjet- ditto
Zoom- one airplane
HMY- one airplane
First Air, Air North- nah
Cargo operators- night flight for life? I hope not.

I sound very negative, but I am not. In fact at least 3 of the companies mentioned would be very nice to work for, but all still rate a distant shot away from why I started. So for now, corporate aviation is my goal.

Corporate- good compensation, good morale in the right company, variety of domestic and international ops, variety of types, personal contact with customers, ability to be "more than just a seniority number".

Here's hoping.

Thread moved - thanks!
 

Just s people reading BlueEagle's comments (above) understand, I posted this thread first in Safety CRM etc, and BlueEagle kindly moved it here.

Interesting post from DockJock - some positive words but from someone relatively new to the industry.

I'd be interested in thoughts from some senior people with major carriers, if you're out there...

A provocative query!

Perhaps it could be enlightening to play the conversation back with a substitution of titles. I would sugest "Rock Star" and "Gastroenterologist", for starters. Many other good job-title candidates wait in the sidelines..

All occupations have their Darwinian qualities. The more prestige, glamour, financial opportunity and importance (rightly or wrongly) associated with a profession, the harder the fish must swim to reach their chosen destiny. Does this apply at all to aviation? Will it stop anytime soon? Probably not. Will pilots adapt? Probably.

More in jeopardy, I think, are the airline companies that employ pilots. Even as aviation has grown and prospered, the airlines have become less sound financially. They expand like crazy when the climate supports growth, then suddenly wilt like an hydrangea caught in the sun when a bit of drought comes along.

The UAL mess illustrates one flavour of the problem: Pilots and crew have the most to gain and the most to lose as the airline goes through the challenge of shrinking operations to fit shrunken demand. Not just jobs, but valuable share interests and pension rights stand likely to go down the tubes without close cooperation to steady the ship. But the polarized factional interests of Capital, several mutually antagonistic Unions, and a bevy of Politicians are standing instead to fight to a finish.

Even if you are a certified rock star, it may not be a bad idea to have a trade in reserve for the tough times. Roofing is steady and predictable, at least. And it gets you out in the air.

A comment.

If the airlines think that a career path that lasts only 15 yrs is better for them then they are stupid. If you train a pilot and his working life is thirty years, then you would have to train two pilots at double the cost if their working life is fifteen.

On the other hand if you are recruiting then the younger of a group of qualified for the job pilots is your best bet (all other things being equal, which they almost never are,) because then it is going to be longer before you have to train another to take his place.

I'm sure you had all worked that out, sorry if I am just restating the obvious.

Son of Piltdown sums it up very well.

The career becoming shorter term and less attractive will sap essential experience and attract lower caliber by virtue of the necessary reduction in standards. This demise will feed upon itself in a vicious circle.

The end result will, of course, be reduced safety.

Edited for spelling -- eventually ! :O

I think we already see a move away from the "Pilot" being in charge of the aircraft.

The Captain is becoming more of a manager, in some cases during non normal operations, we the (Captains) are being encouraged to leave the flying to the F/O and focus on managing the situation (which I can not fault).

In the military we see more and more unmanned vehicles, I wouldn't be surprised if, within 10 years there is a low cost carrier springing up without humans on the flight deck. The flight will be flown by a "Pilot" sitting on a desk on the ground. The argument will be: oh we can send astronauts to and around the moon on automatic, we can certainly assure the same level of safety to passengers on board our aircraft without pilots on board, after all, they will say, the Pilot is the weakest link in the chain. Of course there will be lots of statistics to back up the argument and low low ticket prices to attract those who are willing to take the chance and they will!

Eventually, we will see one human supervising 3-4 flights each carrying 500 - 600 fun seekers to popular plastic vacation spots.

Then, the select few real Pilots will be flying exclusive corporate aircraft or flying for fun.

Thank you, colleagues, for some thought-provoking responses so far.

May I ask now, what do we consider are the reasons for the sea change in our industry? I shan't offer possibilities, but would rather hear your views. Please do get involved and post here - I'd love to hear your views.

flufdriver, your post in particular is in line with some free-ranging thinking I have done. I think ten years is probably on the short side, and that there will be very few executive aircraft as the skies will be so crowded as to make them prohibitively expensive even for the fabulously-weathly. Also, crews sitting in simulators will be doing take-offs and landings only and will be cut into the loop for non-normals in flight. The ratio of flight-deck crews in simulators to aircraft flying will be much lower than you guesstimate. I predict around one flight deck crew per thirty aircraft.

On the other hand, it's worth re-reading the threads in the Test Flying forum about the Shuttle accident, and remembering that space travel is experimental - the potential rewards are amazing, but the possible hazards great, and the achieved level of safety very poor relative to commercial air transport.

Also, how do those of us who are 'too old' to change careers feel? Are you stuck in a trap of high earnings but poor lifestyle? Would you do something different if you were ten/twenty years younger?

>Also, how do those of us who are 'too old' to change careers feel? Are you stuck in a trap of high earnings but poor lifestyle? Would you do something different if you were ten/twenty years younger?<

Faustino, I like your creative style of questioning!

Charles Handy in one of his books (can't remember which) poses the question as to what the purpose of business is and suggests (rightly in my opinion) that the answer is something much wider than just profit (although there is nothing wrong with making a profit) and that good business benefits society as a whole in many other areas.

I think a good analogy is the story as to how they catch monkeys by making a hole in the melons such that the only way the monkey can get his hand in is with it outstretched. He then clenches his fist to get at the seeds but then refuses to unclench it in order to release his hand from the melon. He cannot run away as the melon is now firmly attached and it is then easy to catch the monkey.

In much the same way we have our clenched fists around the x thousand pounds a year. All we need to do it let go and we can escape - yes, there will be consequences but I believe that if you go for quality of life first then standard of living will follow. It just doesn't work the other way round.

You are NEVER too old to change path. The man who started Kentucky Fried Chicken (personally it's not my scene, I hasten to add), Col Sanders was 65 years old and was so disgusted by his first social security payment that he went knocking on the doors of over 1,000 "restaurants" before someone liked his recipe - he became a millionaire within a very short period of time. The ONLY thing that makes the difference is how you think! As Henry Ford once said, whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right!

As a North Sea helicopter pilot, I enjoy the challenges (well, most of them) that I encounter. I would not like to give it up anytime soon.
What is frightening, however, is the way that several employers have shown a total disregard for their staff and simply treat them as costly assets, that can be disposed of at will as long as it does not cost too much..

Talking to friends that fly for the airlines, the atmosphere is very much the same. Pilots have become assets to be pushed around by bean counters, with company managers showing a total lack of respect to their staff.
If anything eventually will drive me out of this industry, it will be this attitude. This way, there simply is no future in it, no career, no job security, no loyalty.

A sad state of affairs.

fireflybob,

May I step in again with some more thoughts?

I think the problem that faces us if we follow your (very attractive!) suggestion, is that, whereas many professionals who become fed up of their lot have sufficient recognised skills to find similar earnings elsewhere, the airline pilot (aircraft manager) is redundant outside the flight deck, both figuratively and literally. This should mean caring employers paying lots and lots of money and providing enormous amounts of loss of licence insurance, but this does not happen.

Moreover, in industry and the professions, earnings can be unlimited. A lawyer or doctor who does very well may expect to plan a career path leading to a very serious salary. An airline pilot can expect to make about £80k pa and not a lot more.

In industry and the professions, moving job is possible (frequent?) as a means of career progression. The individual moves from one job to another, taking a rise in salary and benefits and assuming more reponsibility. In aviation, the seniority system makes this impossible.

Outside aviation, it is uncommon for the individual's personal life to be disrupted by large amounts of weekend or overnight working and frequently-disrupted work planning. Yes, many professionals work long hours, but I would argue that a ten hour day in an office is not so stressful as ten hours in the flight deck and may be more rewarding. One reason for this is that the office-based employer knows his staff can easily 'walk' and will take more care of them.

Faustino I think your premise underestimates the employability of flight personnel outside the airlines.

While it is true the specific technical skills of willing an aircraft from A to B are not so directly applicable elsewhere, the professional experience, management skills, people skills, and resourcefulness that pilots and all other crew members exercise daily in their duties are valuable, sought-after qualities in many occupations.

The daily habits of self-discipline, situational awareness, briefing and self-testing and endlessly learning new procedures and processes are skills that form the baseline for aviation employment but are often rare and greatly desired by management in other fields of business.

Changing skins is frightening and usually involves some interim back-tracking in pay and perks, but many other occupations are accessible and open to aircrew who chose to work outside of aviation. Some even pay better and feel better after a while.

Just as the chosen alternates sometimes come in handy under IFR, it makes sense to have some occupational harbours in mind for bouts of rough weather in one's industry.


-----

As for ground-controlled aircraft - when you do the math, good people are going to be smarter and more effective - and cheaper overall - for a long time to come.

The cases where remote controls are most effective are:

A very well-defined environment/envelope where:
-- weight/space/power are at a very high premium
-- capital and technical support cost are not limiting

and there is also some other primary justification such as extraordinary risk (military) , or relatively few variables (industrial) , or not much consequence if the process fails (experimental), or not a bio-compatible environment (space, reactors, parts of Arfica)

I'm not sure it's better in any other career
 

Speaking as someone who has just left a career as an IT Manager in order to pursue pilot training I am sorry to hear that many of you are not as happy as you once were.

Unfortunately I fear that the 'quality of life' experienced in most walks of life is not getting any better and in my own field I have seen my salary stagnate as the IT boom collapsed. Further to that office workers are now expected to do a lot more work than they did 5-10 years ago, mostly by being 'nose to the grindstone' for the whole day rather than having a few minutes to spare for chat or a coffee. The working day has got longer and the chances of redundancy greater, plus many of the little perks that made office life bearable - overseas conferences or training to learn new stuff are under serious threat. SO it becomes a relentless grind of long hours spent in front of a PC revising budget and project plans to keep the bean counters happy!

The trouble with capitalism is that its ultimate aim is for one employee to be monitoring the automated systems of the biggest company in the world. This affects all of us adversely whatever your profession.

Trouble is, I'm not sure there's any alternative - but there's no doubt that consumer demand for everything at the cheapest price, and the city's insistence on increased efficiency accelerates the trend.

Desk-pilot

Desk-pilot

There are alternatives - the only trouble is that most people aren't open minded enough to explore same unless they are really hurting (financially, I mean!)

I have come upon a fascinating report commissioned by the JAA.

Subject? Commercial pressure on airline pilots.

It is a very comprehensive review of the problem.

http://www.icon-consulting.com/study...ummaryv2_0.pdf

Just how DO we stop the rot?

Getting out of IT
 

I think once people really start to grow up, in my case, in my mid-thirties, you realize that there's things you want to do that are not going to get done if you are stuck behind a computer and desk.

Most of the fun stuff, like training, gratuitous 'field testing' of software in interesting locations, laid back work environment, decent office, regular pay rises, and fun coworkers ... all these things have gradually reduced, certainly in my IT career. I joined a big oil services company for more money, and for the opportunity to travel. It was great for a while, but although the money is decent, the feeling that there is other things 'out there', that once I only dreamed of, like flying, is like a driving force out of IT.

I have pilot friends that tell me how much worse it has got, but to their credit no one has tried to talk me out of trying to fly as a career. I am not expecting too much, but I hope to be able to put food in my mouth, and maybe one day to fly in corporate or a regional ... for now, with the industry in the mess it's in, I will do my best to get my licenses finished, and find an instructing position, banner tow, whatever, just to keep flying.

From my perspective, the people I know in aviation are still part of a big family, and there's a cameraderie and shared experience missing from many other parts of life.

At low levels of the industry, at least from what I see locally here in the states, there is still instructor turnover, and enough activity that it should be possible to land a job, even though there is not too much hiring in the higher levels.

Hopefully, this is as bad as it is going to get, and the next few years will be better. The oil industry is similar. Maybe a year or two to go from 40% layoffs to hiring anyone with a pulse ... lets hope it improves.

> Also, how do those of us who are 'too old' to change careers feel? Are you stuck in a trap of high earnings but poor lifestyle? Would you do something different if you were ten/twenty years younger? <


Poor lifestyle ? ... :confused:
I may not fall in the too old category, don’t feel it anyway.
But I’ve been flying for 16 and a half years now and I still love this lifestyle.
Agreed I’m trapped in high earnings. I could not get this amount right away anywhere else.
But I would do what I do for less.
Agreed it used to be even better.
After the 6th or 7th round of cost cutting measures one gets a little cynical.
Layovers get shorter, hotels less luxurious, rest time shortened.
But I still got a very good deal going.
The day I’m really not enjoying it anymore, I’ll pack up and leave. I promise.
There’s always something to do. (maybe easier said since I have no kids).

If I had to start this career now I might be a bit discouraged.
The economic status would scare me somewhat.
But I still maintain I got one of the best jobs in the world.
I don’t know if a new starter can reach this spot, cause I don’t know if this spot will still exist by the time they get the seniority.
That does indeed worry me.
Also frustrates cause I don’t believe I can do much about it.

The importance of safety seems linked with money.
I know my recurrent training has been reduced over the years.
This doesn’t seem to affect the ticket buying public though.
So I believe we are indeed destined towards the low cost route.
Free market will dictate.

What am I gonna do about it ?
Nothing.
Report for duty with a smile and try to vote smart within my union.

Next time you're in the terminal pick up a copy of Naomi Klein's No Logo and read the chapter entitled "No Jobs". There are worrying parallels between the trend toward McJobs in mainstream businesses and the pilot employment market.

Most "industrial" companies are increasingly reliant upon "outsourced" manpower, in other words; temps. The benefit for a company like Microsoft in having the majority of it's employees on temporary contracts is that it has no obligation to offer (or honour) long-term contracts, holiday pay or benefits like pensions and health insurance. They pay the employment agency a fixed fee for a service, in this case manpower, delivered at an hourly or daily rate. The employment agency in turn benefits from it's legal status as an intermediary and thus has no obligation to pay holidays, sickness cover, medical or pensions for it's "clients", in this case the workers. Thus the agencies' overhead is low so the temps they provide are cheaper for the companies than real employees would be and there is no incentive to create REAL JOBS.

Now compare this way of working with wet-leasing. Not all that different is it? This is especially true when you look at recent deals like Virgin's dry-lease out/wet-lease in deal with AAI. Where did AAI add value in that deal? By operating Virgin's own aircraft more cheaply that VS could. And how did they do that? By having a much, much lower cost base and the principle lever they use to lower their cost base is to reduce the roles of all operational staff to "McJobs", i.e. jobs offering no security, no long-term prospects and no benefits all of which would have the effect of making their employees (sorry, contractors) just as expensive as Virgin's.

Klein goes so far as to suggest that providers of McJobs go out of their way to discourage workers from staying and gain seniority as well as discouraging them from forming unions. I can say from first hand experience that this is not the case at AAI, however the formula they have hit upon does have the potential to make fundamental changes for the profession of flying.

Just a thought, figured it would give us something to talk about.

I think Gordinho's point about the emloying McPilot's for McJobs is valid.

Due to the greater intensity of working patterns in some airlines these days - I'm thinking of low cost of course - it must have an effect on career paths. Consider embarking on a thirty year career flying 900 hours a year of short sectors. Is this really feasible for an individual. Certianly not one who wants a life - and a family life too.

The problem is that this is probably what the airlines actually want. Get the pilots in the system in their early twenties. Train them, bond them so they cannot change airline easily, work them very hard to get a return on investment, let them get early commands as the incentive and then flog them to death as Captains for a few years until they burn out in their early thirties.

There is a clear commercial advantage hear. You get stability of employment because you will do your time due to the bond and the command prospects with the enhanced earnings. You also get a labour force that is cheaper overall.

Why? Because you do away with incremental salary increases, costly pension scemes and other benefits. The overall salary package is therefore cheaper. Furthermore you don't have a pilot shortage as there will always be a younger, willing workforce to work hard for ten years or so. Additionally a younger workforce is less likely to be unionised and the airlines hate unions.

So, the airline gets what is wants.

But . . . where do all the experienced pilots go and what are the safety implications?

We also have to look at the changes in the airline market itself. It really is no exaggeration to say that the salad days are over. Low-costs in Europe have all but killed the notion of national airlines within the EU (or will do so soon). Passengers are wise to the fact that, over the course of a seventy minute sector, the full-service carriers service wasn't really all that different (Air Miles excepted) and subsequently they are increasingly going low cost wherever possible.

At the same time, the downturn in business post 9/11 has accelerated the process of restructuring in the aviation market with sickly majors going to wall left, right and centre and freeing up slots at the major airports, access to which was their last shred of competitive advantage in the battle with the low-costs. Passengers might have baulked at the flying Stansted-Beauvais with Ryanair but LGW-ORY will do nicely. The airports, having invested massively in turning themselves into oversized shopping malls will have to keep people coming through the gates so the slots will need to be filled and in the absence of the nationals the low-costs will have to fill them and the airports will take whatever revenue they can get.

The long-haul market will be interesting to watch. Personally, I used to wonder how the numbers would look for smaller twin-jets flying all "C" or "F" class on the Atlantic with extremely high flexibility and leaving the big cattle trucks to fly less frequently but full of economy pax paying un-discounted fares. This was a few years ago and it seemed a little outlandish at the time but now we see Lufthansa experimenting with all "C" class BBJs flying the Atlantic. For people willing to pay biz class the benefits of a smaller aircraft are clear. They won't have to hang about for four hundred "proles" to get on their plane so their check-in times can be reduced, boarding and deplaning takes no time and the cost is not significantly different (since these people generally don't pay the fares anyway a difference of 5 or 10% might not be considered the end of the world).

Equally, the benefits for the airlines are clear. They could maintain reasonable frequency for business travel without having the burden of filling two or three hundred economy seats on those flights which has the undesirable consequence of causing a glut of economy seats meaning they must be sold at cost or less to fill them. In other words, the big iron would fly less.

Again, these are just fun theories to chuck about but I think they add up to aviation being a much less fun business to be in in the future, which goes some way to explaining why I quit aviation and am in the last few weeks of my MBA. I intend to do my flying at the weekends in a Yak!

Best of luck but I hear there is a glut of qualified MBA's now!!! ;)

Something to do with Capitalism...... :rolleyes:

It's not what you got, it's where you got it!

Something to do with Nepotism:E

On a positive note, I still look out of the office window and think "...and I get paid for this as well"! Sometimes we just have to look at why we got into the business at all - not many of us did it for the money.;)

Hmmm, At 28 I earn more than any of my non-flying mates, I go to work less often and I look forward to my working day at least half the time - my contempories mostly live for the weekend.

By getting into aviation I have met hundreds of really great people and seen some pretty impressive sights in just a couple of years. Not something many of my friends claim and they have good graduate jobs by any other standard.

Nothing is ever as good as it once was and sure - the golden period of professional aviating dissapeared a long time ago. But the same is true in virtually every profession I can think of. I suspect we are towards the bottom of the cycle at the moment where pilots are in a poor bargaining position.

In 5 years time I think the position will be very different and thus we can look forward to a betterment in pilot terms & conditions.

Here's hoping.

WWW

WWW, you raise, as ever, some interesting points. Might I comment?

>>I look forward to my working day at least half the time - my contempories mostly live for the weekend.<<

Ten years on you may have a family and weekends will be really important and you might have a different feeling about it all.

>>I suspect we are towards the bottom of the cycle at the moment where pilots are in a poor bargaining position<<

Sure. Been there before and have the Tea Shirt. However, there is a major structural change in the industry that makes this cycle different. That is the tight budgetry control which airlines must manage, Any alleviation in our lifestyle issues (less flying, pricy bidline packages, more nice managers to listen to our problems, more days off, friendly rosters etc) will only come at a cost.

>>In 5 years time I think the position will be very different and thus we can look forward to a betterment in pilot terms & conditions.<<

I do hope so but I fear the airlines will manipulate the circumstances as hard as they can to avoid this.

The only issue that will drive things forward for pilots is a real and painful pilot shortage. I.e. a set of circumstances whereby the airlines simply have to give us the contract terms and conditions we want in order to trade seats.

Unless someone makes a cast iron safety case for a pilot friendly contract . . .

Don't overestimate the salaries of other professions
 

I think as a group pilots seem to overestimate the earnings available in other professions - sure a top Harley Street Consultant earns £150 000 a year or more but they're a tiny percentage of Doctors - most are GP's who earn between £25 and £60 000. In my own field of IT as a Graduate with 11 years experience aged 33 I was earning £44 000 and that was more than all of my other IT Graduate friends most of whom were earning mid to high £30k's. IT Contractors earn between £300 and £500 a day but have no job, security or pension and now the market for them has collapsed they frequently aren't earning anything. My wife was an IT Contractor and in her best year took home £39000 - maybe £70 000 gross equivalent.

I do think that City salaries are a hideous joke in banking etc but again I suspect the numbers of people making those salaries are relatively low.

I don't know any poor airline pilots, sure the starting salaries aren't great, but in the low cost carriers it seems you can get a command within 5 years which as I understand it means a basic of £65 000 which is hardly to be sneezed at is it? Most SFO's with say 5-7 years experience in a flag carrier seem to take home £4000-£4500 a month which means that potentially in 7 years I could be earning double my previous IT salary.

Because of the lifestyle implications and the costs of funding your own training I would hope nobody goes into this career for anything other than a passion to fly. I know I'm making a considerable financial sacrifice to train because it's the only thing I've ever wanted to do. In short I don't want to get to 60 and look back on a mundane life in an office wondering 'what if?'

I firmly believe you have to do something you love in life to be truly happy and selling out for money doesn't bring fulfilment long term once the buzz of a nice holiday, new care etc has worn off.

Desk-pilot

Professional Colleagues,

Thanks for your thoughts so far in this thread.

RTO makes some plaintive statements, but ones which I can see have their foundations in deep feeling.

I'll think more before posting my deeper thoughts, but in answer to RTO, what do WE do, the ones who cannot grow our hair long, saw the light too late, who were too brave or stupid to know better...?

Desk-pilot, I follow your argument, but I don't agree with it. Should all the money in the world be sufficient recompense for continuous sadness, failed relationships, ageing without living, etc? No, and again, no!

I'm delighted that this thread has kept going, with new life injected every so often, and hope it will continue to do so.

Don't stop talking.

Long Term Prognosis
 

As a fifty something ex wannabe I find it sad to note that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction within this thread.
It seems to me that the burning desire "to fly" that must have motivated many of you has been overtaken by a deep rooted dissatisfaction with your chosen profession.

What happened to "flying for flying's sake".I understand that work place changes have denuded many of the ideals that would have prompted the original urge to choose flying as a career, but surely flying in itself must still be a great motivator.

Having worked alongside many of you during a long career spent
working for airlines in various ground jobs I have an understanding of the " working enviroment " that professional pilots have to live with, and I sympathise with the sometimes "cynical" emotions that come across.

As an ex wannabe, I still wish that I'd had the opportunity to fly professionly.(I was precluded by defective colour vision)

WWW
Your general sense of optimism is a great stimulus, and must be a great motivator for many.
Long may it continue.

Yarmouth,

If you want to "fly for flying's sake", i suggest you find a nice comfortable job that pays lots of money, so you can take the time off to go and fly whatever you fancy.
But to be in a position where the pure flying is limited by company rules about using autopilots, FMS, bank angles, vertical speed etc, while having to cope with all sorts of stress caused by outside factors that do affect your flight and trying to compensate for them, especially the failings of others, while you keep being told by your management/beancounters that you are too expensive an asset, that you need to work more, cost less, and be more flexible, has taken a lot of the fun out of it.

Most of us want to enjoy our flying, but that entails more than simply handling the aircraft. It is about making operational decisions, and contributing to the flight. In order to do that properly, we need to be seen and respected for what we are, namely highly trained and motivated professionals. The sad thruth is that there is very little respect for what we do from the people who ultimately decide our fate as employees. That is why I hesitate to recommend this line of work, especially not with the enormous cost involved.