Originally Posted by
crewdawg
Makes me wonder why you stayed 33 years in this job? Of course it was easy to pay ridiculously good/promise great pensions. We had regulation and very little competition throughout the world. That's long gone but it doesn't mean it's still not a great career. Guys love to opine about how great it used to be but forget that, compared to today, very few ever actually made it to that greatness. Also, it's not like companies didn't go under back then too. Of course we'll see hiccups along the way, no industry is immune to that. I had lots of friends, outside of aviation, lose it all and have to start over at the bottom during the 08 crisis.
I couldn't agree more with this, but again, I think that goes with any career. This is one reason I'm continuing to build a side hustle that can scale up if I really needed. It's also why I chose to stick it out 20 years in Guard so I'll get another retirement source...and income for now.
Crewdawg;
You and I see eye to eye on a lot of things. I didn't have a completely straight run of 33 years, I went back to college and got a medical career after 9/11. Rejoined the Aviation world a few years ago as a freight dog. but all told, I've been in and around it for that long. Still have my hand in the medical gig part time thanks to a good flying sched in the freighter.
Very Early on in my aviation career, I got to fly with some great guys that had come over from Pan Am and Eastern. They would tell me how it was back in the old days. That was the frame of reference that I used to gauge the airlines of nowadays by. You are right tho, about the number that actually made it to the Bigs back in the day. Not too many. All geezers like me sit around and squawk about how everything was better back in the day, its all arguable, and that's what makes us "geezers".
Good on you for having 2 backups-you got it right!!