Originally Posted by
NoyGonnaDoIt
As a bit of an outsider - not flying as a career and never intend to - here's my observation: the career opportunities in most every type of profession or endeavor are cyclical. They move from high to low and back again. And then, they are also subject to general economic conditions.
Aviation is no different and has been in an extended downturn - probably since 9-11 which had both an immediate and long range economic impact on the industry which resulted in less passengers, less flights, less need for pilots. Add other factors, the recession, constant negative stories about TSA (groping being the most recent), cost-savings by corporate travelers and technology gains (you can have a live meeting involving people from different worldwide locations, with no one leaving their office) and you are looking at a current lowering of career opportunities.
Even if an upturn is going to happen, it feels very far away. And there are understandable fears that it might be permanent in the sense that the changes in the past years represent a society shift rather than a temporary response to a temporary problem.
Not exactly conducive to a positive attitude
It is only reasonable that some sort of upturn will occur, but every time we seemed on the verge of that since 2001 something else came along to squash it (SARS, War, Oil, economy, etc)
Even those of us who know rationally that there is likely to be growth in air travel SOMEDAY, and that pilots will have to start retiring again in a couple year still have a hard time getting over the psychology hurdle to find optimism...too many beatdowns I guess. It doesn't help that this is a very fragile industry and any little hiccup will send it into another tailspin. In addition to usual problems (previous paragraph) we are now at risk of being damaged by rampant environtmentalism. The hard-core greenies really do believe that none of us have any business flying anywhere, and that we should all just stay home and tend our gardens and ganga patches (exception made for the private jets of the environmental/political elite of course
).
As fas as not getting into the flying for money...that's OK up to a point. But we are all college educated professionals with five or six figures invested in career training. The current entry-level payscale used to something you suffered through for a year or two...but now we have folks going on a decade on regional FO pay. Also this career is EXTREMELY unstable...after years (decades) of furloughs, job-hopping, starting over at the bottom you really need six figures just to try and catch up.
Bottom line on the money...the current career path will not reliably provide for a family, especially if you get stuck at a regional or double-furloughed (UA) or permanently furloughed (AA). There's a difference between expecting to make $200K at age 25 and being able to support a family at age 45. The big purple elephant in the room is retirement...regionals DO NOT provide any sort of retirement worths mentioning (1% match is ludicrous) and if you don't get to a major young, you will be behind the curve before you start. Unless you devote a huge percentage of your meager regional pay to retirement investment (real investment, not the company 401k) you will NOT have the means to put kids through college or have a nice retirement (you might be able to afford to live in a single-wide on the outskirts of Tulsa and watch daytime TV). It's easy for the current zero-attention span generation to blow that off now though...they all just assume that they will retire as widebody CA's. The problem with that is that you are doing all the work up front in HOPES of a payoff at the end...but what if you don't get hired by a major (there will only be 3 or 4 to apply to in a decade)? What about BK or medical problems later in life?
Unfortunately an industry upturn will only improve hiring, it will not improve pay or stability...unless it is a sustained upturn lasting many years (which has never happened since deregulation).
The reason so many folks are negative is because there is a lot to be negative about. My suggestion is get a real career/skill, and then fly as a hobby...you can even do the airlines as a hobby if you have a flexible real job.