Boomer

I'm also a career changer, and all the positives you mention are real... for a time. Your love of aviation will determine if, and how long, that flame will continue to burn. Mine is still burning (most days) after 8 years.

Four downsides you already know about, but are HUGE in my opinion...

1) New faces every day...

Unless your outfit has a small fleet or lots of little bases, you may not fly with the same crew for a year or more. After years in an office where you know everyone and their families, personal histories, quirks, etc., it gets to be a real pain to have to introduce yourself to another new Captain every few legs.

In other words... this complete stranger is your best friend for the next four days, and good luck remembering his name when you see him next week.


2) Checkrides, medicals, furloughs, bankruptcies, and everything you do is on tape (and the FAA's always listening...)

There are lots of things that will end your airline career faster than you can say "What do you mean I was swerving, officer?" Some are under your control; some are totally beyond your control, such as diabetes, a firecracker in the eye, or the price of Jet-A. You've heard the stories. Try saying that about an office job- Even a bad surgeon can kill a few people and not have to go back to kindergarten.


3) Being away...

If you have a family, your kid will break a leg or have a heart broken when you're in the middle of a trip. Your wife will open that credit card or insurance bill and totally freak out on the phone with you... when you're on a trip. The roof will leak and the fridge will explode... when you're on a trip. Christmas, Halloween, parades, scouts, sports, teacher meetings, reunions, church, lost teeth, birthdays, proms, graduations, weddings... some of them you'll get to go. Most, you will miss. Have I mentioned that you'll spend 150-200 nights a year away from your wife?

Someday, when you're finally senior enough at a regional to get weekends off, will you want to start over at a major and give up holidays for another 10 years, or make due with the $80,000 max pay as your career regional?

If you don't have a family, are you planning on starting one before you turn 65?


4) Money

You have to look at worst case, and your worst case may not be bad enough. In 1999 I looked at DAL, UAL, AA, etc. payscales and figured even if it took me a decade to get there I'd come out way ahead. My worst case was way off - I didn't account for them all taking a 50% hit in wages and retirement. I'm currently down about $620,000 compared to my last career and if anybody shares that number with my wife I'll deny it.

If you can't get by on $40,000 for the next 8 years, forget it. "Picking" the right regional is like picking the right stock fund and putting your entire 401k into it. Today's hot regional is tomorrow's dead end career. An airline with 2-year upgrades today will not be in the same situation two years from now, and no amount of personal effort will get you to the left seat if you pick the wrong airline and they start parking airplanes.

So, if you find yourself saying "I can survive on FO wages for about three years if I tap my retirement or put off having kids" then ask yourself what's the plan if you're still an FO going into year 4, or 5, or 6...

If you're like me you'll love aviation too much to leave, so you'll just hang out on webboards complaining about the Mesa scumbags that took your airplanes and how crummy it is to be a career regional FO. But it beats working for a living in many ways. You are right, you can't beat the view from our office window.


So to sum up, this industry has been in the toilet since a week after I got here (literally - I earned my Commercial Multi on 9/04/01), and I regret changing careers less than half the time. Your results may vary. Good luck with the Mesaba thing - they strike me as a good outfit to be with.