Working Life After Flying

[LessPepper]

You’re right, I know such a professional amateur. But it is real work, this guy hasn’t taken a holiday in years, it’s serious business if you want to beat the market and get a return above that which the index would offer. My point was if you think it’s an easy dabble, it’s a bit like saying being a pilot is about pushing one ‘Autopilot’ button and that’s about it.

[Kirks gusset]

Retired from full time flying in 2018 and initially kept contact with the training organisations as a TRE,,however after about 6 months of lets say "odd hours" sims i.e those the full time guys didn't want to do I realised my enthusiasm was draining away and after a look in the mirror I had become the "old fart" that I objected to when I started training in the 90's.. Knocked the sim work on the head and started working evenings 3 days a week at a supermarket warehouse, quite a good happy bunch there but it didn't take long for the rumour mill to turn on and every tea break was asked "did you ever get scared, or what emergencies did you have" and was constantly called "captain" in a jocular way. Quite enjoyed the peace and relative lack of accountability and responsibility but the absence of mental stimulus meant I couldn't maintain motivation or easily integrate and was never going to a Christmas do, moreover I didn't want to feel I was "judging" my work colleagues as I quickly learnt they were intact happy and content in their employment, so I left and applied to A DIY chain as a "customer advisor', drawing on my interpersonal skills and logical brain!. After 4 months I was summoned to the head office and asked if I would consider being a store manager, but this would mean moving, which for me is not an option. When I enquired "why" they had asked me, i was told that whilst many customer reps try and "sell" things when giving advice, the feedback they had was that I had been helpful but not pushy and the returning customer count for foot traffic had increased. With Covid we are basically shut down and I'm thinking of simply doing voluntary driving work for a special needs organisation where they have retention problems simply as people do not want to adhere to health and safety procedures and work practices. I guess the moral of the story is that we become robotic and used to operating in a strict procedural environment and transitioning to "civvy street" make take some time before you find your niche. Don't disregard the people skills and logical thought processes ingrained in you and the ability to manage others, play on this at any interview. One word of caution, I would say that 95% of the "interviewers " felt intimidated by my previous experience and authority and it took perhaps 10 minutes of quiet talking, if you like puffing their feathers, to get them to see I was genuine about wanting a different career. Curiously, and perhaps uncomfortably, the senior management in these companies seemed to make a "B-line" towards me when doing visits and I felt this was more of a social class thing than anything else. Accept as a retired Pilot you will probably never be "one of the lads" and adjust your persona accordingly, I used to tell them under the tough was a hells angel waiting to escape! Asked why I still want to work, even with a comfy life, I told them to preserve the status quo at home and stop me wrecking my marriage, again, takes time to adjust.

[Uplinker]

Nice one, Kirk, good post

Mrs Uplinker, (a former purser, amongst other things), cannot even get an interview at the local supermarkets for shelf stacking. We cannot understand why, but their shelf stackers etc. are young, and the management might be put off by Mrs U's experience and abilities. She has now started dumbing down her CV.

We, (pilots and aircrew), probably believe that our reliability and experience with customer care and operations in a highly technical and exacting environment will make us more employable, but maybe not?

[Luke258]

Anyone got experience in leaving aviation to join med school?

[hunterboy]

Wow...I guess you’d have to be relatively young to countenance Med school....?

[Luke258]

I wish I was. But I guess that depends on what you call young. Anyway that's besides the point. I believe one is never too old to learn new things.

[Luke258]

Originally Posted by Satoshi Nakamoto

Please forget the idea of leaving aviation to walk into a med school or becoming an investment banker, if your only skill or qualification is flying then unless you can fly you will be on the minimum wage.

Maybe you got a different idea of med school, but this is to achieve a different degree and follow a different Job. The qualification you get after completing med school/University. That's Kind of the point here, to achieve a qualification in an interesting and Well respected profession. So my question is, if anyone done that before. I don't need a lecture on my Chances without a qualification outside aviation.

[msba]

Aviation Lecturee

For anyone that may be interested i just saw an aviation lecturer job going at Southampton University, could be a golden opportunity to see through this awful time.

[bringbackthe80s]

Guys just to give it a little break, aviation is vital to any country’s economy. It’s simply needed. So let’s wait it out, hopefully those who lose their jobs will be back flying soon enough, but let’s not forget that pilots and aviation are a fundamental need of any nation, and they should be treated as such. In the meantime let’s wait as calmly as possible. We are getting more nervous by the day, but if we understand that they MUST have airlines and pilots, everything is not so black all of a sudden.

[Whitemonk Returns]

I looked at med school out of curiosity and it's a non starter, takes about 9 years to fully qualify and when you factor in the clinical and university fees (in the UK or US) it is probably MORE expensive than training to be a pilot all over again!

[guy_incognito]

Although it would almost certainly take significantly longer than nine years to qualify as a consultant, in the UK anyone with a good degree is eligible for graduate entry medicine which is a four year course. The NHS pays the fees in year four. You'd be working as a doctor from year five onwards on the normal NHS pay scale. It is an option, but winning a place to study is far more competitive and difficult than getting a space on an airline tagged scheme at an ATO, and all applicants will have a massive amount of healthcare experience, whether extensive volunteering or working in allied professions such as nursing, optometry, pharmacy etc.

Last year when I was discussing it with my AME, he did say that I'd be absolutely mad to consider medicine, and he's actively discouraged his own kids from going down the medicine route. Sound familiar?

Law would be another possible option. For graduates with any degree, the Graduate Diploma in Law is a one year course that puts you in the same position as a law graduate to apply for the professional phase of training and apply for trainee lawyer positions.

Last year when I was discussing it with a family friend who is a barrister, he did say that I'd be absolutely mad to etc.

[Luke258]

Well it works a bit different where I am from. The whole course takes 6 years to completely, then afterwards you work for 5 years as an intern to be able to specialize in a specific direction. Studying is possible in easter europe and won't be very hard to get in.

[capt.sparrow]

It's possible. As we all have plenty of time I would suggest reading 'who moved my cheese' a very short management book about dealing with change, and the different way people do or don't do it. Some deny it it's happening, some will wait around for something to happen and others will get going with something else.

[Meester proach]

Yes, it’s a tricky one convincing HR bods you will be happy in a £25k job when you’ve been a god of the skies.....

Hard to be taken seriously, even harder to convince you’ve had enough and want to make a clean break of it

[GoldenGooseGuy]

I was facing this predicament in 2009, when the airline industry was being crushed due to the financial crisis, and had no backup options because of a useless Professional Pilot type of degree that wasn't transferable to the real world. I tried applying everywhere, but even with a few friends vouching for me, all of my resumes were rejected because there was no experience overlap. After starting a Master's in Finance and attending career fairs, still no luck because automated resume systems just kicked my resume out at large firms.

The savior ended up being a small business government defense contractor with less than 50 employees who specialized in aeronautical data. I emailed an actual person my resume and they offered to hire me at a rate not quite as high as my previous regional airline captain level, but considerably better than first officer. They bought me time to finish my degree and practice working with tech knowledge like databases and scripting, which I then applied to the finance industry and was able to break into asset management, where I've been ever since, working as a financial manager in a fintech role.

I've chronicled the entire process of changing my career in my blog in the hopes it might help other pilots in a similar situation (I can't post the link because I don't have 10 posts on the forum here, but it's called the Golden Goose Guide). Feel free to let me know if you have any questions.

[TRENT210]

My outlook on this whole situation seems to be a little more Que Sera Sera than most.

Im 30 and currently furloughed after nearly 2 years in the business with redundancy very likely. However I never expected to get a job in the flight deck in the first place. It’s not the “norm” for my upbringing.

I’m from a very working class family and I went the down the working multiple jobs route to pay the £70k for modular training, qualified at 23 and my parents didn’t contribute a penny blah blah blah. (I’ll put the violin away now)

When most of my flight training pals got their first jobs it wasn’t so much of a big deal to their family’s. After all if they hadn’t become pilots they would have been lawyers, doctors or in finance etc. In their social circles it was just expected to have those kinds of high flying careers.

For me and my social circle it was a massive achievement. My family and most of my home town friends work in mundane office, retail type jobs paying under £25k. So to them me becoming a pilot was the talk of the town and not always in a positive way. It’s funny how envious people can be of success.

Even the skippers comment on how I’m the “roughest” pilot they’ve ever met. Honestly sometimes in the crew room I feel like Leonardo DiCaprio in that scene in Titanic where he joins the first class passengers for dinner.

However I can 100% understand the fear some pilots (especially those brought up in the upper middle class) have who’s siblings and family friends children etc all have high flying jobs.

Let’s face it there aren’t many jobs that you can just switch to that pay the same as your average pilot gig and we can’t all be train drivers. Falling from grace is an embarrassing and worrying prospect.

My biggest fear is losing the opportunity to fly and not the reduced income. Earning more than £30k for me was always a dream and one that I’ve achieved. But with the way I’ve been brought up, earning £25k in some boring office job isn’t such a worry but more of a minor financial inconvenience.

I still haven’t got out of that working class lifestyle: peanuts mortgage, old banger on the drive, the love of a £4.99 Wetherspoons breakfast etc etc.

I feel sorry for some of my colleagues that have a terrible shock to the system fast approaching: leased Audi’s that need to be paid for, the prospect of taking little Mary out of private school or downsizing the 4 bed detached house in Surrey.

It’s very hard for some people to realise you can have a happy life in a job that pays less than the national average. Overtime your lifestyles will adjust accordingly, you’ve just got to stay positive.

I really hope in 12 months time we are all laughing at how scared we were about losing our wings having gained or retained our flying jobs.

[36050100]

Hey Trent210

You can be my wingman anytime!

[Meester proach]

Yeah , very true, Trent 210.

I’ve never lived up to the salary , because I’ve never trusted this industry . Thus if I have to do a less well paid job, we will survive.

And you are also right about the sort of people who get jealous about the whole pilot thing ( I’ve met a fair few ) and they are always from the same demographic

[vlieger]

Originally Posted by TRENT210

My outlook on this whole situation seems to be a little more Que Sera Sera than most.

My biggest fear is losing the opportunity to fly and not the reduced income. Earning more than £30k for me was always a dream and one that I’ve achieved. But with the way I’ve been brought up, earning £25k in some boring office job isn’t such a worry but more of a minor financial inconvenience.

I still haven’t got out of that working class lifestyle: peanuts mortgage, old banger on the drive, the love of a £4.99 Wetherspoons breakfast etc etc.

This is well written and sums up my experience too. Stoicism on a personal level helps to survive in this cruel world.

[TRENT210]

It must be so scary for some of the pilots I’ve met along the way, that went integrated at 18, who are now mid 30’s on £100k+. Most of which have never done a single days work outside the flight deck in their lives.

If they lose their pilot job there isn’t many jobs (if any) that pay that much without serious retraining. Only about 20% of UK taxpayers earn over £40k so it’s clear to see there won’t be high flying jobs for all the grounded pilot.

Getting passed HR is a nightmare. I’ve been doing temp office work these last couple of weeks to top up my furlough money. Even though it’s temp the company still want you to be available to them until they don’t need you not until you don’t need them anymore. So to get passed the first hurdle I told them I’d been made redundant from the airline and my base captain kindly backed it up on my reference. The interview consisted of a 5 min Skype chat and I was offered the job on the spot.

I went into the office for the first time thinking to myself keep the flying job under the radar... boom I’m sat about 3ft away from someone I went to school with, someone I have on Facebook. So now the whole office knows I’m a pilot. It’s a very surreal situation, almost like they don’t know how to talk to me as just a regular work colleague. I’ve been asked multiple times by the same person what the scariest part of flying is so either he doesn’t listen or he’s just trying too hard to make conversation.

Although I’m only hoping to be there temporarily I’ve already accepted I’ll never be “one of them” through no fault of my own. I don’t march up and down the office in my uniform nor do I start every conversation with “when I was a pilot...”. I’m actually from their social circle so I can only imagine how they would treat Lawrence or Hugh the privately educated, been in the business since puberty, pilot