Old 07-28-2018, 11:26 PM
  #35  
Big E 757
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Joined APC: Nov 2013
Position: A320 Left seat
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Originally Posted by forgot to bid View Post
When I left my chief pilot job on an Embraer legacy for Delta I advertised the job and found something funny. Despite all the “airline pilots are lazy or entitled and won’t put in the extra effort” talk I didn’t find any corporate guys who wanted to run a part 91/135 job with no mechanic or flight attendant and you had your own hangar and fuel farm to deal with.

I found no corporate guy who wanted the workload. I found airline pilots applying for it but the boss didn’t want another airline pilot like myself because we would run off to delta. So we found a fired fractional guy and I think that went so poorly that the boss just gave the jet over to the part 135 company a year after I left.

The truth is, cliches are bs. Take one person at a time. And retire in peace or fly contract. But you might be happier driving Uber

I agree.


When I got furloughed in 2002, I couldn’t get a call for any corporate/part 135 flying jobs and I live in the Chicago area. Now granted, I got furloughed in March of 2002 and Legacies had been furloughing since November of 2001 so I was a little late to the party. After 6 months of bartending and collecting unemployment (The most fun I had in my 3 years of being furloughed) I got a job flying a King Air 200. It was a decent job but only paid $35K so I actually made less than I was making bartending but I was flying. A year or so later, I got hired by an aircraft management company flying a Falcon 20. The boss expressed his concerns about hiring me and made me sign a 12 month contract. I gladly did. Then I got a friend and fellow furloughee hired because a couple other of their Falcon pilots quit. The two of us were the only guys, other than the owner of the management company and an SIC, also an SIC on a couple of the other aircraft, that were qualified to fly the two Falcon 20’s we had.

My friend and I were basically turned loose after minimum time on the aircraft, and we came up with flows and procedures, had a good division of responsibilities every time we flew, and the owners and charter customers loved us. My boss would tell me all the time that I had a new home, because the airlines were all going bankrupt and I was never going back. It made me sick and angry all the time. When I was recalled two years later, and quit, he shook my hand and told me “Thank God for you and Greg, if it wasn’t for you two, I would have probably lost both airplanes to someone else.” (It turned out he knew I was getting close to going back and didn’t want me to leave.) Also, often, while I was waiting for customers at MDW or PWK, I was being told about different, better jobs by guys that worked for Priester and other charter companies.

(To the OP)
To make a long story longer, there are definitely biases against “Airline guys” in corporate aviation. But as a retiree, you don’t pose a threat of leaving after an expensive type rating. It’ll all be about attitude. But you will have a hard time proving you have a good attitude and are willing to organize maintenance or catering if you can’t get in front of the guy that does the hiring. It is really hard to jump the 121 to corporate hurdle, but once you do, you’ll be in a new club with lots of opportunities. Just don’t be that guy that goes from one gig to the next, costing companies lots of training costs and leaving for a better or higher paying job.

Do some homework and figure out exactly what kind of flying you want to do for your post retirement flying. Then figure out what companies in your area do that type of flying, and then get your happy, handsome face in front of those people. Pursue that for a while, and if that still doesn’t work, then start to look for other opportunities that will at least make you happy and keep you busy.

Good luck.
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