Originally Posted by
USMCFLYR
I get asked all the time when I’m going to go to the airlines from friends in the industry and other pilots I met along the way.
Underlying idea is that every pilot wants to be an airline pilot. On another forum it was even intoned that any good pilot would be in the private sectors and only pilots that can’t make it fly outside of civilian aviation (and specifically) the airlines.
So true,
Pre-September 11, 2001, I had friends that left UPS to go to AA, DL, and even 1 to TWA because everyone kept asking "so when are you going to come to the Majors and become a REAL airline pilot". Of course, hindsight is 20/20 but all of them regretted it for a long time until they got recalled. Even pilots at UPS and Fedex pilots have dealt with this assumption that Everything is always better at the passenger carriers, and that somehow you must be a substandard pilot if you are flying freight.
And certainly, 91, 91K, and 135 pilots deal with this with the never ending question, do you fly those small jets or are you a "COMMERCIAL PILOT? LOL.