Originally Posted by
Timbo
in the snow!
All year! 🤣👍
But seriously, none of the young new hires today ever flew flight engineer, doing EVERY walk around, in the snow, both ways, and on the B Scale. There has never in the airline history been as good an environment to be hired into than today, with new hires getting into the right seat of the highest paying wide bodies, and getting 767 Captain bids in their first year or two.
I’m happy for them, but it’s not at all “normal” career progression that anyone from 10-40 years ago went through.
Late sixties, during the last "pilot shortage", all the majors were advertising in magazines for very low time pilots, and in some small windows, even private pilots got hired, with the condition that they get their CMEL/IA.
Every one of those pilots were furloughed in the early 70's when the gas crunch hit. Some of those furloughs were LONG, like 6-10 years.
Yes, Timbo is right, it can turn a dime.
Save money, kids, it's a short ride.