rickair7777

Been there, done that too but I have to disagree.

In the corporate world there are some disadvantages like long hours and your boss might be a tool.

But there are some huge problems unique to airlines and aviation...

In the corporate world, you can always quit if you don't like your work situation, boss, pay, or geographic location. Your experience is portable, and you will most likely make as much or usually more with a new employer. In most aviation jobs you start over at the bottom.

Normal employees cannot mistreat you too badly...otherwise they won't have any employees left. In the airlines it is almost unheard of (although becoming slightly more common) for pilots to just up and quit due to dis-satisfaction...even at the worst bottom feeders. Managers know this, and play it to their advantage. In the immortal words of Jonathon Ornstien "As long as I have pilot resumes on my desk, I am paying my pilots too much".

In business, once you get some experience QOL issues like work schedules and vacation are negotiable. Never in the airlines, new-hires take what they are given, which is almost nothing. Contract negotiations are done by senior union members, and anything they give junior folks means less for themselves.

In the corporate world you have hundreds or thousands of potential employers to chose from. In the airlines, when and if it comes time to change employers, you may only have 2-3 or fewer employers who you can realistically apply to (based on minimums, geography, who you know, who is hiring). If you blow the interview process (major airlines hire anywhere from 5-50% of those interviewed) you may be completely out of options.

If an airline pilot finds himself unemployed due to furlough, medical, or bankruptcy he may be truly "out of altitude, airspeed, and ideas". He might simply have nowhere to go.

Non-airline flying has it's own set of problems, but there are a few really good gigs out there (unfortunately, competition is naturally quite fierce).

ryan1234

Most of those people have migrated from the North and made a colony called "Florida"

Mustang87

I've always wanted to visit that goofy little country and her people

WEACLRS

True. As I wrote in another post, in the corporate world... "My average work week was 55 to 60 hours, 10 to 11 hour days. Up at 5:30am and in the car at 6:30 to commute 45 minutes to work so as to be in the office by 7:15 to answer (mostly ignore) 75 to 150 emails and vmails a day. By 8:30a my door was revolving with people and meetings (I had a staff of 75 in the last position) until 6:00p or so. I would work at my desk until 7:30 or 8:00p trying to clear up the critical stuff, drive 35 minutes home, and get in around 9:00. Have dinner with the wife, review a little material for tomorrow, and hit the sack at 11:00p to do it all over again. My fellow directors and I would go into the office on Saturday's from 9 - 3 to clean up as much of the week's desk work as possible. I would take Saturday evening and Sunday morning off. Sunday evening I would work at the home office preparing for Monday.

I traveled an average of 8 nights a month away from home. I never saw a three-day weekend like Labor day completely off. I never had two weeks off in a row - at most one week every other year and I spent at least some of it on the phone or internet on company business. My request for a week of vacation was almost always met with "do you have to go now?" or "you can take the week of Christmas off..."

Maybe. It depends on the field, previous position, your visibility and networking skills, reasons for leaving, how desperate you are, among other things. However...

...You don't necessarily have to start over at the bottom.

Really??! I lived and worked in one of hottest job markets in the US. I saw other employees and personally experienced being badgered, threatened, harassed, and mistreated, people fired and let go for poor and questionable reasons. Very rarely did anybody just quit unless it was for another position with different company. It's amazing what people will put up with. I have at least a dozen examples. I personally had my position eliminated three times in fifteen years (ie, not furloughed with recall rights, but just...eliminated.) No seniority, no thought of length of service...absolutely no warning. "After 15 years I walked into my office to see the head of HR and my boss standing there. My position was eliminated in a company reorganization without regard to seniority or tenure or notice ...I was asked to be out the door in less than 30 minutes." I have not seen anything in the airlines regarding the day-to-day management of airline pilots and crew that is really any different than what I saw in corporate management. Same ****, different business.

Yep. By the same token I remember a VP that used to love to respond when asked about annual bonuses when we had a record year with "Bonuses? You get to keep your job!" He meant it. I never saw an annual raise more than 1.25% or a bonus of more than $1000. The only way to make more money was to get promoted. Period. I had stock options twice (once it was a lot of stock options), both times they expired worthless (80% of all stock options issued to executives in the US do expire worthless).

Nope. I was never able to negotiate vacation. Negotiate a work schedule? Sure. Try it. Just see what happens to your career if you are not at work when your boss is looking for you because you are on a "flex" schedule, even one they may have approved. We used to have a saying: "Out-of-sight, out-of-mind, out-of-a-job." If you expect to get ahead, work more hours than your boss, be there before they arrive, and leave after they do.

True. However, in corporate America you might interview 15, 20, or more for each single position you fill. When airlines are hiring in large amounts, the hiring percentage of the number being interviewed is much much higher.

With poor planning and inattention, true. However, with good networking, diligence, some hard work, and attention to the industry, he can keep his options open and available, perhaps within the industry, perhaps outside of it. He may have periods of displacement, but this is no different than in corporate America. I see a lot of pilots get "comfortable". This is dangerous in any field.

Fair Disclosure: I know my experience so far in airlines has been different than some. I caught the last business cycle well. Three years at a regional and now three years at a major. Time will tell if I made the right decisions. So I haven't experienced some of the traditional airline frustrations. I say this to show it can be done, and at my airline in the last hiring wave there were still 1000 guys that were hired before me. So they did it too.

The best time to be training for an airline career? Right now, when no-one is hiring. Get the the training done, get first inline for when the hiring begins again. Get hired and buried into seniority list by being among the first in a new round. If you wait for the hiring to begin again to start training and building time, you've waited to long. There's an old saying: "Good Luck is nothing more than opportunity meeting preparation."

The big crap shoot? If you pick the wrong airline, you may have to start over some day. What looks good today, may be the wrong place in 10 years. As I said, the career "rules" are different.

For the first time in my working career, I have people below me that will lose their job before me, by contract. No more showing up at work one day and finding out I don't have a job anymore. By law and contract I have to receive notice. I have the best retirement plan, the best medical plan, the most amount of time off, vacation I can actually take and use, salary that increases annually for the next eight years, and a predictable income. To me that sounds pretty good. I was very prepared to have overcome worse than I did to get it...because of what I experienced in a successful corporate career.

rickair7777

I think my experience was better than yours. I did not hate it, in fact I rather enjoyed it but I had other things I wanted to do as well. If your employer won't work with you on lifestyle issues, find a new one. It's really not that hard at all (possible exception 2008-2009).

The QOL issue which gave me the most heartburn was the need to be available even when I was not at work. This included vacation, and was a real problem on military leave. Two key benefits of the airline biz for me were compatibility with military service and the ability to leave work at work.

Sounds like you work for SWA or someone in that league...good for you. But someone starting out has a long row to hoe, and there are no guarantees. Over half of the folks I trained either didn't make it to the regionals, or are looking to get out of the regionals. Most will not make it where you are, and they need to understand and accept their career prospects.

Most folks starting out will not have it as good as you do, my purpose here is to make sure everyone understands what they are getting into. We don't need another wave of super-low-timers with SJS coming in and undercutting wages only to get disillusioned after a few years and quit rather than stand up for the profession. It's not good for us, and it is certainly not good for those who spend the time, effort, and money only to quit.

I would rather see only the most committed pilots, who will take the long-term view.

WEACLRS

I didn't hate it either. I just didn't love it.

Agreed, well said. I do think many can have the full career, including the majors. There are almost three times as many major airline pilots as regional pilots. You're right. They have to be committed, and prepared, to take the long-term view. They need to fully understand the reality, both good and bad, what they are getting into before they irrevocably commit major resources.

SkyHigh

Why not tell them the truth next time? You might just save a life.

Skyhigh

ufgatorpilot

Don't worry Sky, you are doing a great job of getting the message out yourself.

USMCFLYR

I'll agree with you ufgator - but he is doing a good job of getting A message out - not necessarily THE message

USMCFLYR

covsting76

WRX i sent you a PM. Just a heads up.