JohnBurke

I have the poster who followed you blocked, on my ignore list, but I don't need to read his quote. He failed in the industry and didn't make it as a mechanic (or apparently as a pilot, either), and has made it his mission in life to post disparaging remarks about the industry he couldn't hack.

I'd strongly encourage anyone to seek maintenance training and certification, and yes, it absolutely opens doors.

kevbo

Turning your life upside down for no gain is nothing to be proud of.

rickair7777

He should probably pick one or the other, at his point in life.

kevbo

[QUOTE=JohnBurke;2581924
I'd strongly encourage anyone to seek maintenance training and certification, and yes, it absolutely opens doors.[/QUOTE]

And what door is that maintenance training going to open? The door it opened for me was the glory of changing a brake on a rainy Christmas night a thousand miles from home, all for less money than the BS job I left!

JohnBurke

Aviation maintenance has provided me with a lot of flying opportunities, including some excellent seasonal jobs in which I flew part year, and turned wrenches part or all year, and made a very good living, especially for the life I led.

Having the maintenance certification got me my first jet job. It got me my first turbine job, and my first four-engine job, all as pilot. It's come in useful doing 135, doing 137 and 91, as well as 145. It's gained immediate employment during furloughs. It's provided a far better understanding of aircraft and systems than I'd have had without that background, and it's saved my life.

Having maintenance training and experience is invaluable in aviation. Perhaps for those who only check boxes and curtain climb their way to the top, it doesn't matter. I disagree, but then I've got several decades of experience in both camps and have seen it work.

dera

With the retirements coming up, it would be naive to think airlines won't loosen their 4 year degree requirements - after all, it's completely irrelevant to the job.

hindsight2020

"hope" is not a plan.

rickair7777

It's completely irrelevant to a lot of jobs, but a lot of employers still require or prefer them. And since there are so many people out there with degrees, "preferred" actually means required in most cases anyway.

Yes the requirement for airline pilots will likely get loosened. But how much, for how long, and which airlines is not predictable. But pilots without the degree will never be on equal footing, in the US.

dera

There are so many people right now with them, but the pool of qualified people will run dry in the next 5-6 years or so. I don't think AA/DL/UA will have the luxury of saying no to a qualified pilot with good credentials but without a 4 year degree in the future.

AA has pretty much already decided that it's not important for them, given that they have flow through agreements with airlines that don't require a degree. I predict others will follow suit. When this happens, that's impossible to say.

This is all pure speculation obviously - the retirement numbers are so large that I think it'll change the whole airline industry. How, that's a good question.

Personally I think we'll be left with legacy airlines with their wholly owned regional subsidiaries, all with actual flows to the mainline, with similar hiring minimums as regionals currently have. This obviously is just a WAG with no facts to back it up.

galaxy flyer

Keep dreamin’. The degree, for better or worse, has been pretty much a discriminator since the Sixties. When UA and AA tried hiring non-pilots to try an an initio program, the 4-year degree was a requirement. I’ve never known a time since then where a 4-year degree wasn’t highly preferred and only a very small percent (<5%) of successful applicants didn’t have one. I didn’t like that fact either, but legacies can and will require it.

GF