With all the furloughs going on and a dearth of jobs, I thought I would comment on this issue that several pilots have talked to me about. If you have been furloughed, you are generally eligible for unemployment benefits. If you are denied, you need to look at the reason and also take note of the appeal deadline. The most common reason for denial (for pilots who just started working) is that you did not work the required number of hours of "covered employment." You will need to work with the airline and the unemployment office to figure out exactly what constitutes covered employment and that you did indeed work enough of it.

If you have an interview lined up, you should pursue unemployment anyway because you might not start your new job for several more weeks. Unemployment is precisely for those weeks that you are in between jobs. Be very careful of this new job, however, because if you quit that one, your status is no longer "furlough," but a "voluntary quit." And VQs are extremely difficult to be eligible for unemployment.

Many of you have contacted me for help and I am glad to hear that things have worked out for the most part. It is the ones who have been denied that concern me. You ought not just roll over and die. PM me and I'll see if I can help in your appeal. Unemployment may not be much, but it's better than nothing.