Originally Posted by
skylover
The thing is, not only do I like the "pilot" part, but I like the "airline" part as well. Call me crazy, but I love the airport environment, with a constant time crunch, passengers, luggage, crew overnights, etc. Maybe I won't love it as much when I join the industry, but still.
Well, for the love of god, consider this (but it's not an ultimatum either):
There are lots of things one can do in aviation, sometimes those things can lead to jobs and positions that are infinitely better than being an airline pilot, such as a test pilot, or FAA airspace inspection pilot, being an engineer and being sent all over to test designs (one of my Uncles worked for MD and helped design the DC-10, MD sent him all over Europe and other places in support of this). There's airline and aviation safety, operations, various regulatory positions, and on and on. You can interact with aviation with all of these, and it may be a lot less likely that you'll get "burnt out" doing the same route every day and never straying.
Lots of these positions pay well enough that you could own your own plane and fly anywhere you want at any time. This is not even getting into the fact that you could look to a career outside of aviation and still do the same thing (have your own plane and fly around). Personally, I like aviation, but I've realized over the years it's not airlines that I like, I just like flying and doing different things. Luckily, the field is quite large if you have an open mind. If you just have the goal of being an "airline pilot", your options are much more limited, and the industry has not worked as in the past for some time, making that intercontinental 777 or 747 job impossible to reach, just because there aren't really that many jobs relative to how many regional jobs there are.
Good luck, but I'd plead with you to open your eyes. The great thing about now is that the internet has most of this information available, whereas in the past NO ONE would tell you what was up with being a pilot and what it really entailed. There aren't many professions where you have to "sell your soul" and "hope" your airline doesn't go under or get screwed over, but that's happened to many people on this website, so you can understand where they are coming from. We are warning you, but it's not meant to discourage.
(and yes, I've gone extremely long periods of time without talking to ATC, where you wonder if the radios are broken)