captain_drew

Why Airline Pilots Should make $200,000 (or more)

By Jack Fearneyhough, DAL 767 Captain

For all of you jealous pinheads out there who whined about the labor struggle occurring at Northwest Airlines, and soon several others, listen up:

The airline business is an equal opportunity career field. Airlines, including Delta, American, United, and Northwest are hiring loads of pilots right now. You, too, can find yourself in the ****pit of a 767, 727, A-300 or any other commercial aircraft out there in the skies. The airlines hire regardless of race, religion, age or sex. They are literally the epitome of the equal opportunity employer. All it takes is enough intelligence to obtain an application, fill it out and send it back to personnel for consideration. That’s it!! Then you may be offered an entry level position as a pilot with any of the airlines, at a starting pay of $25,000 - 28,000 per year. Congratulations.....You’re on the start of your flying career.......Or are you????

Let‘s see, the current qualification requirements, to even be called in for an interview, are as follows: 4 year college degree (no problem, if you have a home computer in order to participate in this cyber dribble‚ then you’ve got that); physically able to pass an FAA Class 1 exam (assuming that you don’t spend all of your time sitting on your brains at the computer, then maybe you‘ll be able to pass.); and oh yeah, you’ve got to have completed the Flight Engineer written exam, have multi-engine, commercial / instrument ratings and it wouldn’t hurt to have the Airline Transport Rating (typed in something larger than your Lazy Boy recliner). Generally speaking, the current averages of new hire pilots at the airlines are: 3,300 hours total flying time, 2,700 hours multi-engine/turbo, with 1,200 hours pilot-in-command. (Sorry, sitting on your sofa, eating pizza and surfing the channels with your TV remote doesn’t count as a single minute of Instrument time!)

What??? You don’t have the minimum qualifications to even be called in for an interview???!!! Well get off your lazy can and go get qualified. Remember, age is not a factor. You can be 60 years old and still get hired as a Flight Engineer - sorry the federal government says you can’t fly past age 60, but you can be a ‚“plumber”. Over 95 percent of the pilots at Delta Air Lines have military backgrounds. That’s all you have to do.....join the military, go to pilot training and spend 9 years on active duty flying airplanes. You‘ll be able to build the hours of experience necessary to qualify for the airlines, get paid while you’re doing it and get to see the world at the same time. What???? Can‘t get selected to go to pilot raining because of the incredibly stringent requirements to get through the door???!!! Oh, don’t want to PAY THE PRICE of having to serve your country, subject to ‚“the needs of the service” and move every 2-3 years. Even then, you don’t know whether or not the airlines will be hiring when you finally gain enough experience and complete your contract with Uncle Sam!

Just what are those high entrance standards? Let's see. For every pilot slot there are approximately 50 who apply. From those selected, they enter a flight screening (AKA washout) program that eliminates half of the group. From there you go on to Undergraduate Pilot Training (for the Air Force, the Navy has a similar program under a different name) for an entire year. Work hard, because only two out of three that enter graduate. Let's do some quick math. You are in a room with a group of people who all want to become military pilots. In fact, there are 150 of you. Guess what? Two years later only one of you will get to walk across a stage and get your wings pinned on. Ouch.

Then you get to hit the operational side. Whoa, first you've got to get through RTU (Training unit, about a 5% washout rate here). Now, you are off to the real world, training to fight or flying operational missions. Now, after nine years of this, the airline career is ahead of you. Wait a minute, I just glossed over one minor area. You see, you have to SURVIVE your time on active duty. Let's look at one squadron and the facts. This squadron of 40 pilots lost one pilot a year for four years. I know these numbers are correct because I was in that squadron. Do the math and you see that the odds of simply surviving a four year tour is approximately 90%. Those odds don't seem so bad, unless you are the one whose life depends on it. Those might seem like just statistics, but go to a few funerals, see the widows and children, and that 90% takes on a whole new meaning. And guess what, those numbers don't even take into account a real live war, and I'm not talking about the wars the stock traders talk about in the stock pits. They use real live bullets in this shooting match.

Ah, no problem, if you can’t or won't make it via the military route, then you can always go the civilian path to the airlines..... Remember those hours of experience???? If not, your short term memory is in doubt which may be a factor in your abilities to fly airplanes and make life threatening decisions - reread four paragraphs previous. Those average of 3,300 hours don’t come free on the civilian side of the equation either. You’ll probably need to start flying as soon as you get your driver‘s license in order to build those levels of hours before your life times out on the mortality tables. It‘ll cost you at least $2,000 to get your basic flying license: single engine, land; capable of avoiding clouds, weather less than clear and a million miles visibility, severe crosswinds and minimum night. Now, congratulations, you’ve got about 40-60 hours towards that 3,300.....get going, you’ve got a ways to go. Start paying for some more flying time, sport. It’ll cost you 30-40 dollars per hour to rent a single engine Piper to fly your buddies around and look at the corn fields. Figure it out genius, it’s going to be expensive to build several thousand hours. And don’t forget, even if mom and dad are footing the bill for you, 3,000 hours of Piper Cherokee time wont get you through American, United, Delta or anyone else‘s doors for a peek at the application stack!!

That’s right, you’re going to have to get those other ratings. No problem. You‘re a smart person. Just buy some more Instructor time, study some more stacks of books, go to more ground schools, shell out several thousand more dollars, spend thousands of hours studying some more, get that dual instruction time, take more tests, pass more physicals and you’ll get that Instrument rating - maybe in that same Piper Cherokee. Congratulations! But guess what.....that’s right, you still aren‘t close to being qualified. You now have somewhere around 200-300 hours; enough to have the minimum necessary to go for a Commercial license. So, you pay, study, fly, study, pay, pay, pay, fly, pay, study, test, fly, pay, pay, fly, study, test......and finally get your Commercial ticket. Great!! Now you can be paid to fly - that‘ll help. But you still only have 300 or so hours flying, not enough (remember 3,300 hours) to land a seat with the Big Boys. Don‘t give up yet, oh Mr/Ms Wannabee, you’re on your way. If you want it bad enough, you’ll keep going. If you don’t want it bad enough, YOU‘LL QUIT, SIT BACK AND WHINE ABOUT THOSE THAT SUCCEED!!! Not you though, you press on.... Get out the check book, buy some more time. You‘ve got to get that multi-engine experience in order to get hired by some civilian company so you can build your time. You study, pay, fly (multi-engine now - so double the hourly rate), pay, pay, fly, pay, study, fly, pay, study, pay, pay some more, fly, test, study, fly, pay and finally - you’ve got that multi-engine rating. So, with all those ratings now, multi-engine, Instrument and the all important, Commercial ticket, you can get a job flying airplanes. Oh, not for the airlines; hell, the commuters won‘t even touch you yet. But you might land yourself a job hauling canceled checks for some company. That‘ll be working the boneyard shift - midnight to 6 a.m. But you’ll get paid minimum wage to fly (and build those hours). Remember, you’re determined to get qualified for the Majors!! Or maybe you’ll get hired to fly parachute jumpers. That’ll get you a couple of hours per day. It’s probably not turbo prop time, but it counts towards the total. No matter, if you work real hard, fly all the time (you do have to have some minimum rest as required by the FAA) you may be able to build 1,000 hours per year! At some point in time though, my future aviation professional friend, you’ve got to get that turbine / jet engine time. Yep, pay, pay, study, fly, test, pay, fly, test, pay, pay and more pay.

Finally, you’ve beat through the ‚“trenches” of aviation to get enough hours and experience to qualify for a position flying as a co-pilot for one of the commuter airlines like ASA, ComAir, American Eagle or United Express. You apply, interview and get hired!! Again, congratulations - you’ve made another hurdle. Now you’re building that commercial aviation experience. Oh, by the way, you’re only making $14,000 per year starting - if you’re lucky!! You’ll get to do this for at least 2 -3 years to build that 3,000 hours of experience and at some point in time, move over to the left seat to build that pilot-in-command (PIC) time. Looking at the years of struggling to this point, you’re probably wishing you had gone the military route - of course, you didn‘t choose that option!!