Originally Posted by
marz7490
I definitely don’t argue against multiple 121 failures. I’d say you’re in pretty hot water if your track record doesn’t stay clean on that end but to say 10-15 years of clean 135 and/or 121 flying with a failure on your private checkride and maybe 2 others will prevent you from flying for a major sounds insane.
Sounds insane from a pilot perspective but I told you why the majors care... don't want a Renslow (or somebody who looks like one) at a major (OK at a regional, you can just liquidate the whole operation to get rid of the offensive brand... no regional has survived for long after a fatal crash in recent years).
Three busts is going to hurt you bad. Four+ and you probably need to plan on a commuter career (and maybe consider carefully whether you should be flying professionally at all). The competitive demographics are stacked against you... it's hard to find a seasoned pro who has never busted anything. But it's really easy to find tens of thousands who have fewer than three busts...
That's the hard reality. In case you're a millenial... life's not fair.
Originally Posted by
marz7490
I argue your last point about there not being better jobs than major captain gigs. Yes, these are obviously desired for most but I’m pretty surprised by how many positions in aircraft sales and things like that provide much bigger paydays over flying for a major. Obviously extremely hard jobs to come by but I am just pointing out that a job with a major doesn’t need to be the end-all be-all in this industry.
A far as what's readily available, it's really hard to come up with a better career path to shoot for. Like you said, hard to aspire to be the head of commercial sales at airbus or boeing, or gulfstream, etc. amazing amounts of luck and timing required for gigs like that, only a literal handful of available jobs. There are 10-20 thousand senior airline CA's in the US (depending on what you consider senior).
Now if you're a high-performing individual who just can't sit still for a minute, then there may well be other careers you are better suited for. I spend most of my intellectual and emotional energy on my military career, when I come to work at the airline I'm content to kick back and just watch millions of square miles of ocean go by...