Originally Posted by
Daddio
Son, 19 and in excellent health and at leading regional university, is considering a lying career. Training through multi-engine/instrument will be expensive, as we all know. Military flight training is a feast or famine crap shoot.
Given turbulence in the airline industry, fuel prices, economic sine wave, age 65 retirement age, projected shortage of pilots, relative shortfall of military training, and other variables, what is the collective wisdom that you all can offer?
What are the short, medium, and longterm prospects for someone of this age?
How best to proceed? Not to proceed?
When I was 19, I asked many people the same questions....and I was told by everyone that the majors would be hiring for ever, I would be a captain in a few years, and life would be great.....this was before 9/11. If anyone had the ability to even come close to predicting the quality of an airline career they would be extremely rich. The point is, this is a business you have to get into because of one reason.....a love for flying. I personally love my job, and would have gone into aviation no matter what those people told me years ago.
The best advise I can offer your son is to be extremely selfish right now, and make the decision about his future based only on what will make him happy to get up and go to work everyday. This business is EXTREMELY difficult at times, and it can be a very hard road to get to the dream job.
Good luck to your son!
CS