Originally Posted by
berge7f9
I was thinking that working as a substitute teacher would be a fairly decent alternative during a possible furlough. The government pays your salary albeit a relatively crappy salary, you can work part-time and then get a teaching accreditadation and roll over to full-time if the furlough seems to be an extended one. My experience teaching as a CFI would be a plus. And it seemed that during the 9/11 furlough era, the teaching profession at least in the SF Bay Area was fairly resistant to the economic times.
But today, I realized that a load of teachers are getting laid off in SoCal and more layoffs are about to happen in NorCal.
I have just turned 23 and am getting my 121 dispatch ticket added on, but it seems there are a lot more pilot jobs than dispatch jobs, and in a furlough those jobs would also become scarce.
I guess the best option in the case of a furlough would be to get a CFI job at a nearby FBO or academy as the place where I originally instructed is way the hell on the other side of the country. But like SkyHigh said "It seems to me that when a furlough or lay off happens nearly half do not find another flying job."
I think the best bet is a part-time federal government job from which the possibility remains of going full-time.
It has been my experience that flight schools really do not like to hire laid off airline pilots to much. In the first place it must be hard on student moral to have an airline hero in the pattern doing touch and gos and management probably thinks that as a seasoned professional that you would be more difficult to manage.
I remember when I was a full time CFI whenever an airline guy would come in looking for a job they would leave us wondering "
what is so wrong with this guy that he needs to find an instructing job?". I wouldn't count on your CFI as a career back up.
SkyHigh