Originally Posted by
Aryan
When you say stuck, do you really mean that you have so many negatives in your background that no reputable airline will hire you or are you just lacking the initiative to go back in job seeking mode?
I've talked to pilots who say they are "stuck" when they are really too lazy to get off their butts and do what's necessary in today's job market, to get a better job.
Stuck means stuck, not able to extract one's self from one's current situation without extreme pain or permanent disfigurement.
I got the call from United. I'm forever grateful I did. But I did nothing dozens of other SAI pilots have not done, my qualifications were not superior to theirs, my flying, organizational, and people skills are not superior to theirs. And if United had called them instead of me UAL would have seen that. UA hires maybe 20 supplemental guys a year, and maybe 2 of those guys come from SAI. Maybe DL, AA, and WN have similar numbers. Maybe the mid-majors hire another 5-10 a year. Maybe FedEx and UPS will up their game and grab another 5-10: best case is thirty out of 210 Southern pilots make it to the promised land every year. More realistically, only five to ten move up.
That's s(t)uck.
Atlas was picking up quite a few SAI guys before they bought the company. Now Connie is the only alternative ACMI carrier a SAI guy can look to for a better situation.
I looked really hard at RJ operators before UA called me. If I had lived in an RJ domicile I just might have made the jump. The odds of being picked up by a legacy are much better from the 50-70 seat world than they are from the ACMI world.
It would have been a pay cut to go from a 6 year SAI WB FO to a 1st year RJ CAQFO, but a QOL improvement. But I never was sure if I could afford the luxury of the pay cut.
That's stuck.
11,000 applications on file at UAL. We will hire 300 this year. That's 2.7% Those are lottery ticket odds.
That's stuck.
Say you leave SAI after ten years and get a gig at a mid-major, it might take you five years to break even on base salary. If you don't have five years difference in pay in savings that you can live off of while you catch up, you're ess oh ell.
That's stuck.
And if you just quit, move on to greener pastures without warning those who come after you of the hazards you encountered and they will face, then the leeches who run the place will simply double down on their abuse and exploitive tactics to secure even further concessions from their new employees, and lower the bar for everyone in the industry.
Spike is stuck. Whale is stuck. 8 is stuck. A hundred other great guys are stuck.
But they're not giving up. They can keep others from making the mistake of joining a company with a malevolent management and an unacceptable contract. They will fight that management for a fair deal. And when they win their contract battle, they will encourage others to come enjoy the fruits of their labors.
That's how this s... works.