The airlines are creating the Pilot Shortage
10-11-2012, 04:38 PM
#173
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Mar 2009
Position: Lunar Lander Commander
Posts: 158
Originally Posted by Flying Ninja
Many people ask me these days if I have plans to move on to the airlines from flight instructing. I gracefully laugh in their faces before I ask them: WHY WOULD I?
Sure, I would love to fly jets, but I refuse to take a FO job at the regional airlines because of the low pay. Period. Anyone who is able to are either independently wealthy, married (rich or 2nd income), supported by rich relatives, have a pension from a previous career, or are young enough to be able to start life over in another career path.
So long story short, you can count me in the "qualified, but no thanks" column because that pilot pay is the biggest joke since life began on this rock. At least make it a livable wage. Someone on welfare has more given to them by the government than someone who worked hard, dropped six figures on flight training, trying to be a responsible citizen. I hear airlines frown upon pilots standing in the food stamps line in uniform. Is that still true?
Sure, I would love to fly jets, but I refuse to take a FO job at the regional airlines because of the low pay. Period. Anyone who is able to are either independently wealthy, married (rich or 2nd income), supported by rich relatives, have a pension from a previous career, or are young enough to be able to start life over in another career path.
So long story short, you can count me in the "qualified, but no thanks" column because that pilot pay is the biggest joke since life began on this rock. At least make it a livable wage. Someone on welfare has more given to them by the government than someone who worked hard, dropped six figures on flight training, trying to be a responsible citizen. I hear airlines frown upon pilots standing in the food stamps line in uniform. Is that still true?
I have struggled with this for 5 years now but the conclusion I have made is that their is something more importaint than just money; it is passion. Will I regret it, maybe. Will I love it? Probably but not definitely. The point is I am in your shoes right now but I feel a certain calling. Sorry to sound cheezy but my gut tells me to go. That part of my brain that has allways been right in the past and when I have gone against it I have allways regretted it.
Always an individual decision, it does not work for everyone.
I am always one for free market economics. No one is holding a gun to my head to go be an FO at the regionals. At the same time I love corporate aviation. If worse comes to worse and I leave regional xyz in 5 years I will have a load of turbine time to apply with at xyz corporate. The carrot is the time and that is why the ball is set so low and that I understand why. I flew Skydivers for 5 bucks a load and the carrot was flying a DHC6-300. So what, I loved it. I could have a day off surfing or a day on flying a DHC6-300 and have just as good of a time. What is a poor QOL to one may be prime QOL to another.
The most important thing is a good attitude and with that good attitude can come a remarkable transformation in your QOL overnight.
BTW - The "wage" is always an agreement between the employee and the employer. It is a voluntary exchange. So the wage is not "set" it is simply agreed upon by the interaction between employees and employers. Simple supply and demand mathematics. Getting mad at it is like getting mad at the second law of thermodynamics.
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