tnkrdrvr

Thats easy to answer. What job is hardest/most competitive to get? That is the consensus answer to your question. It doesn’t mean there aren’t other good jobs out there. Historically speaking that has been at the legacy carriers. Due to the impact of deregulation and the last 20 years of black swans, LCCs and ULCCs have become attractive to many. For others flying boxes has become very attractive.

Of course, if you want the most fun flying go military aviation. It only costs giving up complete control of your life to Uncle Sam.

DontLookDown

Depends what kind of schedule you want.

Home all day, every day, weekends off? Regional cargo will have you flying at night Monday-Friday. You start and end in base so you’ll be home everyday from about 8 AM-7 PM.

Have a predictable one week on and one week off schedule?
Fractional or charter

Work days and spend basically no time in a hotel?
Small corporate aircraft or charter (likely flying piston aircraft or at most a king air)

Have a majority of yours days off, but subject to change with little notice?
Large corporate

Schedules days off with the flexibility to change your schedule to fit a particular months needs?
Airlines


Most people compromise between schedule and money.

Major airlines will give you the best of both and the jobs are plentiful so most people make that their goal.

rickair7777

Generally airlines *reliably* offer the best schedule, most time off and flexibility.

There are a few corporate jobs which are great QOL deals, but you normally have to know somebody and luck into a gig like that... a corporate aviation career is not going to reliably offer as much time off as airlines, but you can control that to some degree by being elective about the jobs you take (of course you need to establish sufficient professional credentials that you have the option of being selective).

Also many corporate/91/135 jobs involve little to no overnight travel, so that could be a significant factor for some people.

rickair7777

I'd include purple and brown right up there with the legacies, over your career you're probably do more night flying but you don't have to be stuck with that after you gain some seniority.

ANG first, then USAFR... you get to pick your plane and base, and work on civilian your career in parallel. So you retain most of the control of your life (unless WW-III).

SeanPilot

Thanks for the inside information. That gives me a good idea of what to consider when I get there someday...

SeanPilot

Rick, you are funny... You must have missed my first post. I am an old man (45 years old). I did 4 years in the US Air Force (enlisted as a firefighter). The recruiters laugh me out of their office now because I am so old. LOL! I'll probably be 48 or 49 years old when I am going to have enough flight hours to qualify for a starter Pilot job. At that point I will have finished my 29 year job as a firefighter. Kind of a unique situation... Thanks for your insight though.

dckozak

I'll speak specifically to Fedex but expect much will apply to UPS and some what to the freight ACMI's out there. A lot of talk about day flying and with seniority avoiding night. Don't kid yourself. This is a heavy night business and avoiding night flying will be close to impossible. Before someone chirps in how they have avoided it for years, I'll say that you will have to bend and twist yourself hard, remain a FO when otherwise you could hold Capt with reasonable seniority; live in domicile and bid day flying (with seniority of course). Get into management ASAP or the training department, great if that's what you want, bad if you got into to this because you love to fly and see the world. And of course, avoid international by staying out of fleets that primarily do international. If your flying for one of the better known ACMI's, I'm guessing you cannot avoid either nights or backside of the world, maybe one but not the other.

QRH Bingo

My guess would be it has to do with the fact that they hire pilots into an entry level 121 role at the bare minimum of required time. There could be errors in the applicant's logging of time (intentional or not) that disqualifies them later on during the training process when found out. This is a waste of money for the company and they lose a warm butt to occupy a seat.