13 years RAF (ME Jet/QFI etc). 14k hrs total (10k on 737/TRE). PFO'd by Jet2. Must learn to be more sycophantic at interviews. :(

It may have been true in the 18th C but not in the 21st. Tiger Woods? Rory McIlroy? Andy Murray? Premiership footballers to mention but a few?

I haven't met many over the forty years or so that I have been flying.

Wow, that's a quick reply. How nice for them, but no-one is talking about occasional exceptional individuals. The average salary for a golf professional in the UK is around £29,000; and around $59,000 for a head golf pro in the USA. Hardly rich I feel. Other sports are similar.

Look on Pilot Carreer Centre's website. Try the Gulf crowd Emirates, Qatar & Etihad. Maybe a corporate job?

Good Luck work is out there. :ok:

Emirates policy is not to recruit direct from the military and Etihad want a commercial type rating unfortunately.

Apologise if this has been pointed out already but there's one sure thing: you have been properly trained. You could not imagine what I have seen on conversion courses. People with a licence but no clue about being a pilot; you don't get that with Service-trained types. Fact.

That is very true. I have to train some of them. Admittedly there are good ones but there are also some who should be nowhere near the flight deck of a commercial air transport aircraft. They have not been selected for ability and aptitude for flying, only the ability and willngness to pay for the training and it makes me weep. Airlines no longer care about the quality of individual pilots, their training and backgrounds, only money.

I don't think I'll be spending much of my pension on air fares when I retire, especially with Lo-Co airlines - I know too much.

On reflection, your military experience is not worthless. You will have a lump sum with which to pay for a type rating, and a pension that will allow you to accept poor renumeration.

Good luck.

one piece of advice : transfer to that Commonwealth Air Force and continue flying the same aircraft.

joining an airline now is sod all ,
enjoy the weather while you're there and do your bit of flying every now and then.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I think, if I could press the rewind button and do it all again, I would still serve in the Air Force but I wouldn't go anywhere near an airline. Professional qualification - law or accountancy> into business>make money>buy own aeroplane(s).

Purple Pitot

Well said, Matey! Absolutely spot on!

Do the commonwealth detachment. You will get the right to live in a part of the world which is comfortable. Better the devil you know. The civil world for new joiners is not good. Your experience will not be valued. You will be viewed exactly as a pay to fly kid who is wet behind the ears. You will have NO input.

I cannot emphasise do not join the civil aviation world in the UK.

easyjet etc are **** I cannot tell you how bad but if you want to retain any self respect do not join the civil market...

Bob,

I'm intrigued what 'input' someone straight out of the military can give to an established airline, such as EasyJet, crewed by experienced professionals who have been doing the job, very safely & fairly successfully, for quite a while. I've seen & heard this a few times over the years & have to ask what are the airlines doing so wrong?

I'm not trying to provoke an argument, I'm just curious.

I'm a little curious about that too. I joined an airline, from the RAF, almost exactly one year ago. Much to my surprise it wasn't a collection of clueless amateurs regularly plunging their aircraft into the sea but instead an assortment of generally pleasant professionals who do a good job, day in day out. I did not expect, nor did I receive, a ticker-tape parade on my joining the company and I pleased to say (although not surprised) that the company don't ring me on a daily basis asking how things were done in the RAF and what laying on of hands i can offer to help the company reach new heights :rolleyes:

Instead, I go into work, fly from A to B, am treated courteously, enjoy what i do, get paid a decent enough wage and at the end of the day I go home and get on with my life. It will wear thin, I know that, but the upshot is my time off is my own and if I want extracurricular "duties" then I have to go looking for them. If not, work ends when I log off post flight in the Crewroom.

Military flying experience, if you have enough of it, is recognised by airlines - they're not idiots (on the whole that is - there are HR depts and recruitment agencies that might challenge that assertion). That said, there are a lot of experienced non-military types chasing the same jobs as you.

Airlines aren't charities and the world doesn't owe you a living however many of them like a spread of experience so take on, where they can, a mix of military, experienced civilian and the odd cadet. Admittedly the market is pretty flat at the moment and jobs are a little scarce. Airlines are looking for the path of least resistance when recruiting at the moment so, all other things being equal, someone with 3000hrs and a type rating beats a military (or Civvy) pilot with 4000hrs and no rating.

There isn't an "anti-military" vendetta out here, just the usual ebb and flow of market forces. Just don't join the fray expecting to held aloft as the saviour of civilian aviation. You're not and nor will you ever be.


PS. My experience of civilian aviation so far suggests that, on balance, the RAF could learn more from the civilian world than vice versa. Just IMHO of course.... :hmm:

Excellent post StopStart. I served my 'apprenticeship' in a UK charter airline in the mid/late nineties & flew with some brilliant ex-Cold War warriors who were a pure delight to share a flight deck with. I learnt something every time I flew with them but the one thing they all encouraged to a man, was the importance of manual flying skills, sometimes from top of drop to touchdown, something that today's button pushers & bean counters balk at.

On balance, the recently de-mobbed that I have encountered are very capable & eager to learn a new craft, I think that they get a bit of bad press due the 'Divine Right' few that think they are God's Gift to aviation, their new employer & fist thumping on desks demanding to leapfrog seniority lists in order to get to 'their' rightful place before their Sim sessions are finished. Fortunately, these people are usually 'enlightened' during Line Training or by a few Seasoned Sweats.

I was in the Officer's Mess at a Front Line RAF Station, after operating in on an MoD charter when a 'Romper Suit' attired Wing Commander introduced himself with, "Hi! I'm leaving the Service in a few months, how do I get a job as a Captain with your firm?"
I replied with the usual type rating, thousands of hours & a considerable amount of time on type. His response was "But I'm ex-RAF Fast Jet with 16 years service & 3000 hours flying experience!" Right on cue, we were joined by our First Officer who, due to my questioning, gave a breakdown of his experience. I could see the Wing Co's eyes glazing over as the FO reeled off his 5000+ hours on type, 8,000+ hours total experience with hundreds of Non-Precision Approaches, some to minima on Islands in the Med', Carribean, Indian Ocean, both Atlantics & Pacifics, hundreds more approaches into the likes of LAX, LHR, JFK, CDG & many more international gateways....
I brought an end to the torture by then asking the FO to explain what you have to do to get on the Command Shortlist, what you have to do to maintain your position & I asked the FO how long he'd been in the Command Pool, he replied 3 years & how long before he could expect one. He shrugged & said about another 3-5.

The Wing Co' came back with "Well in that case I'll go 'Corporate' I'll get a Direct Entry Command at NetJets. At this point the Relief FO (we were Heavy Crew) chipped in, "Really? When I joined NetJets I had to do 2 years carrying the passengers bags before I got my Command! Sounds like they've changed their policy.", knowing full well that NetJets had laid quite a few guys off in the recent weeks.

The Wing Co', shoulders hunched, bid us a safe journey & left us.

The one piece of advice I'll give any ex-RAF pilots leaving the service & joining a UK airline is when you join, & for the first 6-12 months in your new employer is 'Switch to receive instead of transmit'.

Dozens of trainers with tens of thousands of hours stick time & box time have 're-trained' hundreds of sky gods like you in the decades they've been in the Industry. They've heard lots of suggested 'improvements', countless 'You should do it this way...', and more 'Well on XYZ Squadron we did it like this...' than they care to remember because THEY were possibly the instructors that instructed the instructors that instructed the instructors that instructed YOU! So Switch to receive', make the most of the, on the whole, excellent training that the UK airline system has to offer & spend your first few seasons or years learning a new, still fairly lucrative, still relatively enjoyable trade with new people, operating a 'new' type to various destinations & if you keep your head down, within a few years you'll be deciding on whether to stay for a Command or stay as an FO for a little while longer & join the Big Boys. It's your call.

But never, ever, EVER forget that you are blessed to have a career that is out of reach to most who yearn for but can only dream about it. And it's cost you nothing financially, unlike some of your colleagues who have probably mortgaged, re-mortgaged, held down 3 or 4 jobs, suffered financial difficulty or jeopardy to get to 'THAT' seat.

If you think you can handle all that, then 'WELCOME' & I hope you enjoy your 'Civilianisation'.

Well, why not, RGM, 'you' are doing exactly the same job as the kid?

I take it you were turned down by Easy then?

StopStart and DADDY-OH!,

That pretty much describes it in my experience (RAF FJ to age 38, BA to 55, now a TC at a well-known Lo-Co until the sun sets).

It can be summed up succinctly as follows:

The ex-mil FJ pilot will have aircraft handling ability and experience that most purely civilian pilots cannot imagine, especially if he has been an FJ QFI or QWI and/or done the TP course at Boscombe Down or equivalent foreign establishment. He will not be "fazed" by unusual aircraft attitudes or the corners of an airliner's flight envelope. His hand-flying skill will be honed to such a level that it will be instinctive. An ex-Mil FJ pilot would not have stalled AF 447 or if he did he would have known how to recover immediately.

On the other hand, the ex-mil FJ pilot will not necessarily have the softer people skills which he will need to prosper in his new environment. He will be more comfortable giving and receiving orders and he will have to learn to discuss, hint and suggest his way to the goal. He will have to learn that he no longer picks his team, that he will have to work with the people he is given to work with and he cannot quickly ditch the weak, incompetent or poorly motivated. He will also have to accept that planning, organising, decision-making and leading at the level he was used to is no longer his prerogative. He will also have to learn how to handle himself in interviews if he wishes to progress beyond the flight deck. There is no continuous assessment for promotion or "talent-spotting" in an airline. The promotions go to those who are adept at selling themselves.

I he can adapt to that and accept that his superior flying skills will very rarely be called upon he should do alright.

My apologies to the ladies. "He" includes "she".

Lets just presume my fellow ( ex ) african dictator is a well balanced stable type who is aware of his or her limitations and not an EMC.

The sad fact of the matter is that he or she will come from an environment where one is generally trusted to go away and do a job with a fair amount of leeway and trust from ones employer ( MOD ).

The mob I work with at the moment micro manage us. Essentially they do not trust us to do the job. Local management have established a tittle tattle regime where everyone has been encouraged to snitch on each other ( including local handling agents, airport employees'and Engineers) . It has become an arse covering exercise where the company just takes and the employee just gives. There is a constant expectation that we should go the extra mile while the company is barely willing to shift its position. That is in most facets of the job. Try getting a day off and see what I mean..

It is not a happy place to work. The Captains authority is slowly being eroded. Most decisions have to be vetted by operations ( not a bad thing generally ) but thinking out of the box while staying within SOP is NOT encouraged.

I have not even started on the extremely poor starting conditions for new contractors or the revised offer for employment. I would suggest Charles has no expectation of a direct entry command. The reality is he will more than likely be employed as flexicrew with 2 to 4 years before a chance of becoming an employee. Then a wait of 5 to 10 years to command. Not much of a life if you are in your early / mid thirties with a family or lifestyle expectations.

You might disagree with me however I would suggest many will see life through my " orange " tinted specs.

P.S Added 23 Jan for perspective. This is against a backdrop of a company that made a million a day last financial year. What will give when it does not achieve that sort of performance? The CEOs' bonus worth 2 and a bit million at current share prices or employees' flexibility and T&Cs'. You decide.

P.P.S The major shareholder disagrees with the AMB,s decision to consider a financial commitment to new airframes at the expense of shareholder reward.

Unhappy from top to bottom.

Business Aviation
 

Charles,

I have never worked for an airline. Never worked out for me and I consider myself not an unhappy person because of that 'failure'. Quite contrary, I sometimes look with disbelief at some companies apparently trying to find the ideal 25 year old candidate with thousands of widebody hours who doesn't need sleep or money and whose fertility is tending towards zero.

Exactly!

Try to knock on doors where military people like you are working and launch a job on a small business jet. What's wrong with starting with a King Air, by the way? It has always been my impression, that former military aviatiors have another appreciation of each other - even if that other guy worked for another country's Air Force, Navy etc..

Good luck!

HoBo just to clear it up for you, RGM is a captain for easy, was in the military and is a nice chap who I have learned a great deal from. I genuinely can't think of a more by the book pilot that I've flown with. That's not ar$e licking or fighting someone's battle - just the truth which pprune needs - it's hard enough trying to weed out the truth from all the bickering, bitterness and ulterior motives around here.

The last few posts have summed up the situation well.

DO PAY TO FLY
 

Someone somewhere has paid a lot to get that ATPL. I do not know just how little flying is now required to keep a licence VALID.

I was able to find a Dart Kitten on hire to me for £1/10 per hour just to retain my ( then) Commercial Pilots Licence. I had to do six hours and six T/Os and landings. It was a single seater, so no check ride. A three hour cross-country before my first landing on type. It had been noisy and windy but so much cheaper than a complete retake of everything.

(My initial test had been from Gatwick, based in the Beehive pre-war Terminal Building with PSP around for parking, and IIRC the R/W was just grass. The night flying cross country HAD to be from Croydon as it had LIGHTS !)

Balance
 

The financial realities are continually talked about with reference to the airlines and the cost of low hours pilots.

Well the financial reality is that I cannot afford to work for nothing or pay to get the experience of heavy jets. Simply because I have a family to support. I do have to pay to keep my licence ticking over, mostly to Cash, Again and Again but also for medicals and IR renewals etc. I'm fortunate in being in a flying job, currently, which is military linked but I am no closer to getting a foot in the door with an airline that I can actually afford to work for.

I am under no illusion that my paucity of experience in Air Transport operations is not made up for by my RAF experience but some of the building blocks are transferrable. The RAF got on very well before I joined and has continued to do so since I left. Similarly civil carriers seem to have been doing just fine without me and no doubt will continue to do so even if I don't secure a right hand seat with one of them.

I would like to think that my military training would mean that I would not make the same mistakes that were made by the unfortunate Air France crew but never say never. We are all products of our training and previous history so I will be more susceptible to making different mistakes by either error or omission. Are these mistakes any more or less serious? Well frankly who knows? Cadet pilots from the likes of CTC Flexicrew etc are trained in a manner that the regulator deems fit for purpose and military guys are trained in a manner that the force deems fit for purpose. I don't think that the two products are polar opposites but apparently HR do. Sadly for us at the moment it is HRs view which counts.

Self evidently there are people in any walk of life with any number of backgrounds with whom you would rather not work. I'm really rather looking forward to learning a new role and meeting different people from different backgrounds since the majority of military aviators are relatively homogenous in their backgrounds. Does one bad experience with a former military aviator mean that we are all bad? No to suggest so of a racial or sexual orientation background would be rightly seen as illegal and offensive. Equally can we extend the stereotype of CTC cadets to all newly trained ab initio pilots? Of course not.

Sadly I am coming to the conclusion that having started in the military these days it means that you are either stuck there or are going to have to jump to a City type job rather than moving on to the airlines. Do I think that the airlines benefit in the long term from this? No but it's not my choice or decision.

A healthy mix of backgrounds within an organisation is likely to bring the breadth of experience which will allow an appropriate level of adaptability to ensure the profitability of the organisation.

Standing by to be told what an idiot I am.

Without getting into a civvy/military arguement I the above statement will cause a few raised eyebrows !



Anyway, I've worked for 2 companies who have had a strong biase towards recruiting ex-mil, but now they only want to recruit type rated people as it saves on training costs. Thus ex-mil are persona non grata unless they have been somewhere else first to get Boeing-airbus experience.

So military flying is the cheapest way to get flying training but when you come out looking for a civvy job it's now going to cost you a type rating. Unfortunately it's the world we've been living in , on the commercial flying side . I don't think any line pilots want it this way, but it is now the way it is.

I don't particularly like the attitude some guys have coming out the military, saying our experience isn't valued, it almost sounds like "we deserve a decent job" straight away. Well I'm sorry but you have to join the queue with us lessor mortals and when you have a Boeing-airbus on your license , your experience will be valued . Company's are looking to save on training costs.

You don't have to be an ex- top gun to fly a 320, 747 etc. Companies are looking for the cheapest safest option.

As expected
 

I have clearly failed to write in clear and lucid English. I never said that I was owed a living, I simply stated a fact which I thought would be intuitively obvious. I can't afford to work for nothing.

As to the admission of human fallibility, well I'm sorry I'm not super human.

What do want Bigdad? A grovelling apology for my having had the temerity to having begun my flying with the RAF? OK I'm really sorry, it won't happen again. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.

How true.

There is the problem. Most of our new recruits are very cheap because that is the value they place on their service. Then they have the audacity to whine and whinge that they are not paid a living wage. Serves the fools right and if their stupidity is enough to doom them to perdition so be it.

Advice
 

For what it's worth my advice to you is to either stay in and get a nice cushy desk job in the MOD (which I think would be the best option) and do some recreational flying at the weekend or go and get a well paid city job and fly for fun. This profession is pretty much finished as a viable career.

To be honest even if you get a job you're going to be working for constantly decreasing terms and conditions in the UK or you're going to have to go and live somewhere undesirable like the Middle east to get paid what you're no doubt worth. Also if you join one of the second tier companies you're going to be worried about job security. I currently fly with with some ex-mil guys and I don't think they're that happy with the loco lifestyle or the way people are treated by mgt. I think they miss the respect that they were treated with in the RAF where their skills were appreciated. You won't feel appreciated in a loco, you will just feel overworked and underpaid!

Sorry if this sounds like pessimism on my part but the way the industry has changed in the last 7 years since I joined and the way it is headed with more cost pressure on pilot pay, worse/temporary contracts and future EASA changes in working hours it is no longer worth getting into it even though the flying part can be enjoyable. There's a world of difference between the likes of BA, Virgin, Thomas Cook, Monarch and the locos and those first four are incredibly hard to get into because everyone wants to work for them. Everytime one of the quality companies like Monarch opens their recruitment doors they shut them again within hours because they are literally swamped by people desperate to get out of the loco sector of self funded type ratings, 100 hour months and poor terms and conditions.

Couldn't agree more with any of that Desk Pilot.

I am just leaving the Service after 17 years as a helicopter pilot and looked into moving across into the Airlines (foolishly buying into the glamourous side of it!) rather than rotary. From meeting and chatting to a variety of aircrew in both the fixed-wing and rotary worlds I quickly came to the conclusion that the Airline world just wasn't worth it unless you were lucky enough to get in early at a very few of the major UK-based airlines or a legacy carrier abroad. Unfortunately as a 39yr old helicopter chap I am too old to be competing against 21 yr olds, which is fair enough, but I feel very sorry for the experienced multi-engine types now leaving the mob who are in the same boat, because they don't have that valuable Type Rating.

The aircrew I chatted to who seemed to be the most satisfied with their lot in life (longhaul BA aside!) seemed to be the North Sea helicopter pilots. Generally very good rosters, home every night, plenty of opportunity for overtime and salaries loosely aligned with the airline world.

Robert,

http://thatshortguy.com/wp-content/u...antgetajob.jpg

It's a vicious circle and an extremely tough market. Getting the job and experience is the hardest part.

Yes but the problem we have now is what is experience. I was told years ago having 10 plus years of rotary experience by my betters on the North Sea "Go airlines because you will have a better standard of of living".

In 199* experience was either

1. A few years Turbo prop.
2. A few years Military ( fast jet / Rotary / Transport )
3. A few years self improver/ instructor / banner flying / para dropping / etc )
4. A few years dispatching / cabincrew / crewing etc )
5. CTC before it became an obvious money making scheme.

Please note that the last was included because the people I worked with who came out of CTC in the early years were of a very high standard. In fact they were trained very highly and were bright,bright people. Unfortunately the training if not the candidate has changed in the last few years. It now is less about the candidates innate ability and more about the profit margin. ( with exceptions )

We now have people who cannot or will not have the integrity to declare themselves physically/mentally unfit because they are totally dependant on " the company ". No fly no pay.

Ironically most of our low / middle management positions are filled with ex RAF people.

The difference between leadership and management is subtle but I was told years ago that this was the "integrity" call. Some if not most of the ex RAF types do not know the difference because they have never led people but have managed assets. I do not know of any ex FAA or Army types in orange management I am but willing to stand corrected.

I can say my experience with the Tango mob is that integrity is not valued at all in this company, in fact it is not valued or demonstrated at all.

P.S Had a few gins so forgive the obvious mistakes

Well, it's dreadful really isn't it.
What Now - that was a good balanced post , you don't deserve any heat for it. As per AF, I can't see any trained pilots making those mistakes - ie mis- diagnosing a stall.....

When I did my original 757 TR with squadron 2000, I was partnered with a ex-Nimrod guy. I was self improver, bizjets etc... The instructor said that we both brought different skills to the table, and thus complemented each other. I think this was probably right. It takes all sorts.

Sadly alot of pilots I talk to are looking to leave aviation, as they really can't see any future in it anymore.

In the 1950s and '60s a number of airlines in the UK and elsewhere went out of business. The Chief Navigator of the Charter Company for whom I woorked told me that " their work would still need to be done... by somebody. The Crews would just have to change their cap badges." He proved to be right.
And that was in the days when hardly any scheduled services were allowed to be operated except by State owned airlines, from a very limited number of Major Airports, often with a State Subsidy somewhere to help.

New aircraft could be introduced with " Our NEW Super Jet is faster than Theirs" . For many recent decades with very rare exceptions all fly at around M.8. And fly at F/L35.0 +. ( That is rather like "just below F/L !0.0 " before we had pressurisation !)

Look at the order books for new aircraft from both A and B which are due to be in service whilst some at least of the present fleets are still young, with many years of service potential. The NEW ones ARE more efficient - but still have to be paid for. The present fleets must have a lower book value. Some will be disposed of, not broken up. They will still need staff.

The only aircraft that I flew which had been bought new from the makers was the Bristol 170 Mk32. The others had all seen service as First Class Airliners with some other Major Airline.!

KEEP YOU LICENCE VALID

I know a lot of pilots that are now branching out into different areas of the economy. Flying is no longer seen as a career. It is seen as a source of revenue which is piped directly to the pilot's other activities which provide for a more secure future.

We have to adapt to the changes in our industry. We must fight reductions in T&C toot hand nail. While at the same time every pilot needs an exit strategy. For I have noticed that those pilots with the best alternatives are the same pilots who are willing to fight the hardest for our T&C's.

I do not blame the man with a wife and kids to take care of for not being willing to put his job on the line. I do however blame the man who has the ability to walk away from flying tomorrow yet he does not fight for his colleagues who are not in such a fortunate position.

Great posts RGM

What now indeed !
 

At various times there been too many pilots for too few jobs.
I flew with a number who for that, or other reasons, had had to give up flying for a while.
My Chief Pilot with one long haul charter Company was a Actor at Stratford, with photographs to prove it.
One of the two Captains who flew the DC3a was learning to be a Dentist.
A Training Captain ran his own Laundrette and Taxi business, and freelanced at Croydon. ( Having taken his fares to Croydon Airport, he was asked by one of the Charter Companies to fly them to Paris. He was recognised... "I hope that you will give us a cup of tea when we get airborne..." Difficult in a Consul.He was flying DC8-73s when i last heard.)
A Senior Captain had had employment as a Cinema Commissionaire. He would have looked even more impressive if he had he worn his medals and wings. we never thought to ask !
A Battle of Britain Pilot was a Catering Manager for a few years. ( We ate well with him !)
There must have been many other, where the details have been forgotten.

I do not know what suitable simpler and lighter aircraft there might be round you. Type Technicals used to require me to draw out the systems and controls as well as knowing the limitations and capacities etc

What now
 

Having been involved in the transition of military pilot to the airline world for over a decade I have to say that with very few exceptions, they are a pleasure to work with and military selections process tends to screen out people with issues. Their strengths tend to be an ability to learn and a focus on whats needed.

I know it may come across this way to some, but I think that there are very few military pilots who think that the airline industry owes them a high paying job or are entitled to jump into the middle of what is an almost entirely seniority based system. But I think most of us are entitled to feel that we can be a valuable asset to an employer. We have skills and experience that is relavent in the commercial world and those of us who make the concious decision to go to an airline want to learn how to operate in the new environment and be good at it.

The frustration for most of us seems to be that relevant experience does not always seem to be recognised, particularly at the early stage of the recruiting process. It is a sad fact that anything that is easy to measure and seems to be relevant will be measured. Thus total time and time on type (be it jet, or specific aircraft such as A320 or B737) seems to get a very high priority from HR departments instead of reading between the lines a bit. I know that quantity has a quality all of its own but I will venture and any one of the hours I have hand flying a helicopter at 200' in the dark over the sea on instruments is worth more than any of the hours that I now have on autopilot at flight levels in an airliner, by several orders of magnitude. But how do can I convey that on paper when trying to get the first airline interview? If you get to an interview you can argue your case but you have to get the interview first.

The hours issue gets worse the older you are because the military simply does not fly as much as airline operations and thus the hours for age disparity gets worse the longer you leave the transition.

I had applications in for a long time, with lots of companies, before I was offered an interview. In the end I was extremely lucky and ended up with a DEC which was a complete surprise but rapid expansion and being in the right place at the right time worked in my favour. Within a month of being offered my current job I received a reply from a similar operator with whom I had an application in with for over a year. 'After careful consideration' they were not even going to offer me the first stage of the recruiting process, let alone an interview. How can two ostensibly similar companies come up with diametrically opposed responses to the same CV? Stuffed if I can work it out.

I'm glad I stuck it out and got into airline flying. It may not be what it was 20 years ago but I am really enjoying it plan on sticking with it for a long time to come. I don't miss the uncertainty in the cross over period though.