I'm in just about the same boat, just not in the Marines.

 

Your enlisted service will certainly be a benefit to your airline job hunt. It will not replace the college requirement, that's a separate ticket to punch.

I think you have ground combat experience...blackwater, dyncorp, and other lesser known companies hire pilots for "hot" theatre work. If you meet their desired flying experience, the ground combat background will be a huge plus. They pretty much hire ex-operators exclusively. Also some high-end corporate departments might like folks who can double as body-guards, but you would also need appropriate state training and licensing for that.

 

I too know several major airline pilots without four year degrees - in fact four out of five of the major airline pilots I know got hired without four year degrees (the one who did was an USAFA grad). All have at least some college. All have previous successful job experience. All had a recommendation.

A study was done on this a few years ago (I'll look for it). Essentially it said the percentage of hiring of pilots without a four year degree equaled the percentage of pilots without a degree in the hiring pool...meaning about 6 percent of pilots looking to be hired at majors don't have a four year degree...which has resulted in 6 percent of pilots hired at majors not having a four year degree (or something to the effect of those percentages). The reason we've kept up this old-wife's tale is because 90 plus percent of pilots looking to be hired by a major do have a four-year degree, so everyone says that's necessary. So by default most pilots have a degree or go get a degree. Kind of self full-filling.

What does not happen to a great extent is someone getting interviewed at a major without a recommendation. The two largest factors to getting interviewed at a major (assuming the major is hiring) are:

1. Meeting all of their minimum qualifications.
2. Having recommendations/sponsor to speak for you.

Sure there are outlyers, the odd story, the "son-of-the-chief-pilot's-best-friend", etc. But everyone I know that has been hired has had a internal sponsor and they were near the mean average of hiring times at the major (for example the mean hours a SWA new hire has is 1800 hours part 121 turbine PIC)

I question how much major airlines really care about a four-year degree, unless you are young and don't have much else. And regionals, they're struggling to find commercial pilots with 500 hours now. At the moment regionals could care less.

One more thought. If a major airline was interviewing ten candidates, five with a four-year degree and five without and the five with the degree wanted starting salaries of maybe $50/hour and the five without were willing to be hired at a starting salary of say $30/hour, and all else about the candidates was roughly equal, who do you think the airline would hire?

I thought so.

 

A bs is highly over rated. What good is it, really? I know that it looks better, but I know so many people without them who are much better off than people with them(myself included). I feel like 4 years of college was the biggest waste of my time and money.

 

Many things can be wasted, but sometimes it's our own fault. A college education should enrich your whole life, as well as your wallet. The courses I now value most are the ones I took in history, music, and philosophy--none of which yielded me a dime of income.

 

An extremely high percentage of the "career" regional pilots I know do not have a 4 year degree. And most of them don't really WANT to be career regional pilots...

Also you have to be very careful of statistical surveys in this business...things change too fast. Many of the crusty old airline captains who have a GED with a 1.7 GPA got their major airline job by working for a small company that got bought by a larger company...for example DAL would not have street hired many of the old-time local boys who came with the Western airlines acquisition.

In todays world the BS/BA is required for entry into the professional white-collar world in any capacity, which includes airline pilots, even though we obviously have some blue collar aspects to our trade.

The best opportunity for non-degreed people today is construction and related fields, but you have to be self-employed to make real money.

There are always exceptions, but if your uncle is not the certificate chief pilot at a major airline you had probably better get the degree...

 

Hate to say it, but in my eyes, professional pilots are no longer white collar jobs.

Majority of white collar jobs don't have to use a union to get what they need.

This is a service industry, and once again, the only white collar people who are in the service industry are the managers and owners. Not the foot soldiers.

 

Wasn't there a study done not too long ago that showed that the average Blue collar wage was more then the White collar wage?...And that didn't include the cost of college...Every job has its extremes I guess...You not going to be a millionaire flip'n burgers...Unless you were Dave Thomas...lol...Cheers

 

I think we have a tendency to throw numbers around too much…blue collar makes more than white collar…bus drivers and garbage men make more than airline pilots…etc.

Here's a link to what our federal government thinks. This is the National Compensation Survey results for 2004. I know things have changed a little since then, but it does provide some perspective.

http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ocs/sp/ncbl0727.pdf

A couple of interesting things: The mean (meaning half the sample earned more and half the sample earned less) white-collar salary was $22.34 / hour working 36.1 hours per week. The mean blue-collar worker earned $15.64 / hour working 38.0 hours per week…or just 70% of the typical white collar worker.

On the high end of white collar are Physicians at $57.90/hour and 41.1 hours/wk, Airline Pilots at $113.82/hour and 20.5 hours/week, and selected college and university professors ranging from $52.84/hour to $63.98/hour and 36 to 43 hours /week. Lawyers came in at $48.60/hour and 40.8 hours/wk. Mean CEO salaries were $48.91/hour and 38.6 hours per week.

Our favorite blue collar guys: Police - $24.10/hour and 39.3 hours/week. Truck Drivers and Bus Drivers at $14.85/hour and $14.89/hour and 40.5 hour/wk and 28.3 hours/wk respectively. How about A&P mechanics at $26.68 /hour and 40.1 hours/wk.

According to one of the notes in the study "…earnings are the straight-time hourly wages or salaries paid to employees. They include incentive pay, cost-of-living adjustments, and hazard pay. Excluded are premium pay for overtime, vacations, and holidays; nonproduction bonuses; and tips."

Obviously there are over-achievers out there in each field that earn more. And obviously Airline Pilot pay is weighted toward major airline pay scales and not regional pay scales. Still, this is consistent with what I've seen in studies before. The Airline Pilot profession has always ranked as one of the top five paying professions in the USA and still does today (at the major airline level). And without a doubt a four-year college degree is a must for every high school graduate. There is no question that the college grad will earn more and have more possible higher paying opportunities in their lifetime.

 

Airline pilots make $113 and work 20 hours a week???

Those surveys conveniently exclude unpaid non-flight time...many pilots work 2-4 times the hours they actually get paid for if you count sit times, mx delays, pre/post flight duties, travel to/from the hotel, etc.

$113 / 3 = $38

Let's look at an FO...divide $38 by 2 = $16

Normalize that for an age 65 retirement 35/40 x $16 = $14/hr.

There is also a tax penalty since pilots (the lucky ones) experience a large increase in pay during the last years of their career...they get taxed more haevily on this pay "balloon" even though it is compensation for dues paying early in their career.

Want to really scare yourself? Do that math again, but start with 2nd year regional FO pay...