FlyingDutchie

Okay first off, I get it. If you came here to give me religious advice or tell me I'm useless as a pilot or that my kind don't belong in aviation I've heard it before.You can PM me if you so wish. I would like to ask for some help and get some good answers and direction if anyone is willing to give it. I already understand by the seniority system most parts of an airline career are out and that's perfectly fine.

Currently at ~2000 TT with a King air type rating flying single pilot, should have ATP within the next year. The long term aspects of where I am aren't great, so I'd love options. I CAN work on the sabbath as long as its a work of necessity or mercy, so Military, Air Ambulance, or national security are in and similar. Otherwise I can work any day except sundays.

Looking for a long term career, where should I gravitate? I would love homebased cause my wife wants to live somewhere with a tiny airport thats a few hours from a big airport, but I understand that will be difficult. I have looked into airmed but I can't find salaries or a good place to start. I know that there are probably some part 91 operators out there that might be open to employing someone like me, but no idea where to find them.

If anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer them and thanks for your help in advance.

Myfingershurt

The sabbath is Saturday.

drywhitetoast

Fly for Chick-fil-A?

TiredSoul

Does the IDF take a day off?
No, because it’s preserving life correct?
Certain occupations are simply 24/7/365.
You’re pretty much limited to Air Ambulance and donor flights.
Make a decision which day though, you can’t have both.
Islam allows relief from prayer during traveling as long as you make it up with later prayer.
You may want to ask a Rabbi ( I’m assuming) if you can get a waiver so to speak.
I’ve found the Jewish faith very pragmatic on occasion.
Which Shabbat times do you abide by ?
Local time or Zulu?
Not trying to be smart by the way.
Just thinking out loud.
So Shabbat Jerusalem time would start 7hrs before EST.

DC8DRIVER

Samaritan's Purse

https://careers.samaritanspurse.org/...s/job/12151930

rickair7777

The fundamental issue with airlines for sure, and many other employers, is that they use a seniority system. So a pilot who worked weekends for say seven years and is now senior enough to spend weekends at home with his family will not tolerate the company making him work weekends so a junior pilot can have Sunday off... no seniority-based employer would entertain that for a moment. So the issue isn't about accommodating you, the issue is that somebody who already paid HIS dues would have to cover for you.

To make it work with the airlines, you'd have to make an exception to your beliefs for some period of time until you get the seniority to consistently hold Sundays off. You'd also want a scheduling system which lets you pick specific days off, so you'd need an airline which uses a PBS (Preferential Bidding System). Most do now, a few use the older line-bid system... line-bid *would* have some weekends-off lines but they would be few and likely go very senior. PBS would be better because the younger pilots typically want Fri/Sat off, but are not as concerned about Sunday.

Another issue with airlines is training, simulators are expensive and run 20 hours/day, 7 days/week. You probably couldn't be guaranteed to avoid Sundays in training, although I'd guess some employers might work with you on that.

But if you can't make an exception, then there's not going to be any way to do airlines in the US because weekends go junior. One airline does not fly at all on Tue and Sat, but everyone flies on Sunday because it's one of the busiest days (vacation/weekend travelers heading home for work).

There are other options, I can think of three locations right off the top of my head where a corporation or the government provides weekday shuttle flights for their employees who work at very remote sites, but either prefer to or must live in a nearby city. There are probably some other corporate operations with a similar footprint (look in the southern US, some companies there don't work at all on Sundays so they probably wouldn't expect their pilots to).

If air ambulance works for you, those jobs are available.

The downside is that jobs that do weekend commuter or other short-range ops will typically not pay nearly as much as the airlines or top corporate jobs. The later will involve large-cabin bizjets which do international ops, so there will almost assuredly be weekend flying. You'd basically be looking at about low six figures, instead of potentially $300-400K+ at the airlines.

Federal jobs might pay a bit more, look into FAA Flight Inspection Services, they *might* be M-F only.

JamesNoBrakes

I'll let flight inspection speak if any of them care to comment, but in flight standards you will work some Sundays/Saturdays. It's rare, but it does happen, whether it's on-call for accidents or traveling to/from somewhere when there were no other options (class or TDY ends on a Friday). Working for the Fed the good thing about it is you get fairly comped and paid for any time you spend outside of normal work hours, but it doesn't eliminate you from occasionally having to do just that. An office job would be best for never working a weekend day. Hard to do with flying jobs.

With air ambulance, what about re-positioning flights? They do those all the time, they aren't out of medical necessity/emergency, but surely these will end up on the weekends sometimes? The nature of aviation is 24/7, save for some really limited niche situations.

PotatoChip

Start networking with rich, Jewish dudes.

TiredSoul

7th Day churches adhere to Sabbath also, I’m thinking that’s what we’re dealing with here.
Still my recommendation stays the same, talk to a religious leader/scholar and see if you can somehow make amends for not being able to adhere to certain times/dates.

captive apple

I had a 7th day jumpseater (assuming) who was never leaving the regional level because his seniority held Sunday off. Regionals are possible. You can quickly move up the FO side and then delay upgrade until you are in the top 1/3 of captains.