Originally Posted by
MoonShot
I wouldn't focus too much on age. You do have some great things going for you. Around the 2020 time frame, almost all of the major airlines are going to be retiring pilots like crazy. If you can just get hired in the first half of that wave (about the first five years or so) you will be set. Your first five years at the airlines would look extremely different as compared to someone that's been hired over the last decade (just bad timing for the 2000-2010 hires). As others have stated, the airline pilots have really been kicked in the teeth that last ten years. 9/11, outsourcing to RJs, bankruptcies, Age 65 etc... causing little growth and few retirements. The pilots hired at the majors between 2018-2025 are going to really going to have great progression, IMHO.
I made it at 24 (but very much on the backside of the hiring wave).
Good luck to you!
I agree. It's not about age, but about where in the hiring cycle you get picked up. Say you're hired at the end of a big cycle, with 2,000 pilots hired in an airline of 6,000. And you're the youngest person in the airline, for example 8 years less than average. Let's make the average 38, you 30.
Until the last 8 years of your career, you're going to have 2,000 guys in front of you competing for everything good. THEN they'll start getting out of the way. So, out of 35 years remaining to 65, you'll really have the run of the airline about 8 years.
The number one guy in that cycle will only be one number junior to the bottom guy in the previous cycle, even if it's been ten years between cycles. HE is going to be at 66% of the company when you're hired, and he's going to steadily progress to #1, about 8 years before you retire. Now, since he was hired at the average age of 38, he'll only have 27 years at the airline, but each one of these will be a good year.
He'll have a great career, despite starting older. You will have a
decent career. You'll be better off than the old guy hired in your class, by far, and you'll enjoy a happy period near the end of your career. Right around the time you'll start worrying about wet farts, you'll finally be able to fly really, really long legs...