Well, to his credit, the airline biz was going gangbusters in 89.
Take a look at the list of airlines that were around, and the amount they were hiring. A causal read of an old FAPA newsletter (no intrawebz back then) shows lots of places, including cargo, were hiring. The majors were hiring 100/mo, and there were more than 4.
Lots of 3 man cockpits still in the fleets. There were retirements AND organic growth, which meant a rapidly mobile list.
It was a great time to be a CFI. Lot of people training, so you could grab 80 hours/mo. Training was not expensive....relatively anyway. Probably 12k zero to hero, which is about 24k today. Mom'n'Pop schools were growing everywhere into 30-40 plane operations. In a little over a year, you got your ticket punched at 1200 hours. Every school had a pipeline to the cargo outfits, so you moved right on to single engine freight, followed by a twin gig.
No angst. Everyone was moving up.
Couple hundred hours later, your buds hooked you up with a job flying at a commuter. No ATP rule required...everyone already had 1500 hours. No 300 hour wonders here.
A year and a half later, you were a captain on a BE-99, Metro, J-ball or maybe one of those new Saab 340s. You had 3,000 hours or so, and the majors were looking pretty good.
Then 91 happened and Gulf War 1. Guys then, like now, were stuck in the pipeline as everything ground to a halt. Fleets starting shrinking, absorbing any retirements, then the furloughs started. Just about the time things got a little bit better, the RJ scourge happened in 92.
Things got slightly better by around the end of 95, but any growth the mainline carriers had were severely tempered by outsourcing and the attrition of the 3 man cockpits. The number of carriers were down, but UPS, SWA and FedEx picked up some of the slack. Still, it was a nice little run from probably 96 to 2001, but nowhere near the numbers of the late 80s.
Then the lost decade happened (in reality, it's more like the lost baker's dozen).
Things look brightest right until the train hits you.
Nu