aaronk84

I'll be receiving my bachelor's degree next Sunday and am at a bit of a crossroads. I have a good chunk of my GI Bill benefits remaining and while I know the most responsible thing to do would be to use them to get my MBA, a part of me wants to pursue an old dream and use those benefits to attend a flight school (probably ATP in Florida) with the intent of working my way to a career as an airline pilot. Looking at these forums, however, I've noticed a disturbingly large number of pilots advising aspiring pilots to seek out a different profession, as the industry is currently in a bad state.

My question, then, is to current airline pilots: If you were able to do it all over again would you avoid the industry?

poor pilot

yes at all cost. I've had this talk with pilots young and old most say the same thing. Wish I had done something else. Yes its pretty sad but thats the state of the industry today.

de727ups

"If you were able to do it all over again would you avoid the industry?"

I'm happy with the career. Pretty much always was. Only thing I'd do different is not get a degree from ERAU but get a non-aviation degree in a second area of interest.

sweptwing

RUN and RUN fast...stay away from the aviation industry ! It's just the way it is and it will not be good for some time to come. If you want to fly, go down to your local airport and learn but do not think of this as the glamorous profession it once was. Get a degree with some sort of future and you will look back on this in 5 years and be glad you did.

astrojet

next 20 yrs do not look good...automated cockpits, drones, cost cutting, sophisticated electronics, lcc, dying unions...all have been lowering pilot wages slowly but surely. some trains in japan today run without conductors....in 50 yrs the same will be true for planes.

rickair7777

Automation will happen someday, but not in the working lifetime of anyone who is old enough to read these forums.

Even if all of the technology was available today (it's not, particularly AI) it would be cost-prohibitive to scrap everything we have now just to eliminate pilot jobs. Once the technology is developed and affordable, it will have to be incorporated gradually into aircraft and ATC systems as they are replaced over time. Then you have to overcome the whole public perception issue...I personally would not ride on an automated airliner. A couple truths about engineers...

1) They always think they thought of everything.
2) They didn't.

Elevators are automated, and so are some trains...but not over-the-highway trucks. A teenager today might finish his career at UPS without an FO. Maybe.

The DoD has fielded a lot of UAV's, but that's because it can be done cheaply and quickly without the usual certification issues. Good, Fast, Cheap...you can have any two. The predators have suffered about a 30% non-combat loss rate over ten years...extrapolate that to airliners and you get a smoking-hole accident every week.

Almost all predator pilots make 6+ figures, and they ALL make more than a regional FO and all but a tiny handful of regional CA's. The airlines might have trouble finding suckers to blow $100K+ at a puppy mill to earn a minimum wage job playing a video game. There will always be supervisory pilots at ground-control stations, at least for the conceivable future.

gearcrankr

You are better off pursuing a career that rewards hard work and dedication and passing on one based purely on luck and good timing. If you are going spend time around airplanes you are better off in the back than in the front. Good luck in your career.

pilot1278

It depends on what you are looking for and willing to put up with. Everyone is different in that regard. If you have the patience to be an instructor or fly for peanuts as an FO at a no-name regional for 10 years, then go for it.

If not, then get into flying as a hobby, get your ratings slowly, while using that MBA to pursue a career that actually makes money, and then switch into flying when opportunities open up.

I LOVE flying, and I LOVE teaching. However, it is not my primary career because I have a family to feed. There isn't a week that goes by where I'm not kicking myself in the a$$ for dropping out of college to pursue a flying career back in the day.

snippercr

Most definitely not. I'd love to see a computer program that was written to handle a dual engine failure and then decide to glide the aircraft in a nearby river and still have everyone walk away.

We need to develop AI first before they will start letting aircraft fly themselves and no matter what Popular Science says, AI is not going to occur within our life time and probably next generation's life time.

Right now, as a minimum wage flight instructor living in a dumpy apartment with no prospects of advancement, I wish I would have chosen something else. I love flying - I don't care how it occurs. I really wish I would have gone another route to get a job that pays well enough for me to fly recreationally on the side - maybe even own my own aircraft. I know as a career pilot I will never own my own aircraft - even a 172.

Blueskies21

Just depends who you ask and how their career has gone to that point. A guy with a couple of furloughs or bankruptcies or airlines closing up shop is probably going to give a much more cautionary tale than a guy that went to one regional and one major. As has already been pointed out this career depends less on skill and more on luck/timing. You could be the most skilled pilot in the world but if you get hired at the wrong time you will still be furloughed and if you chose the wrong airline it could still close up shop. Of course you won't know it was the "wrong airline" until it does close up shop and unlike almost every other career, if one of these things happens to you, you WILL start over at the bottom. There is currently no such thing as a lateral move that won't start you over, you can't switch companies for a raise as many other careers can. Technically you can but that won't be regional to regional, you'll have to move to some other segment of aviation for that raise.
There will always be those that fall in loving with the idea of flying for a living and you really will never be able to talk them out of it. It just depends on you and your timing to decide whether you like it. Just go into it eyes wide open.