HeRnAnE

Why is it that more than half of the people in this forum are so negative about aviation?

I'm not trying to make enemies here guys, I'm just saying that most guys are hurting the "wannabe pilots" just like me.

I've been reading this forum for a long time already, and most of people here are so negative about this field. I'm just so afraid of pursuing my dream job now... some people make it look like this career is a nightmare.

Once I read: 'if you become a pilot for the money, you'll never be successful.'

I so hope that one day I can come back to this forum and make a thread saying something different about this career.. And prove to most guys that you were wrong.

Again, I'm not here to make enemies.

stbloc

If you have been flying the past 10 years you would understand the attitudes. Flying isn't what it use to be. The glory days are over now your just a bus driver living your life out of a suitcase most the year for low wages. the path to a major has changed and many will never make it. You need to go in with the attitude that you may never fly for a major and should be all right. Still a great career for some but other do have regrets.

NoyGonnaDoIt

As a bit of an outsider - not flying as a career and never intend to - here's my observation: the career opportunities in most every type of profession or endeavor are cyclical. They move from high to low and back again. And then, they are also subject to general economic conditions.

Aviation is no different and has been in an extended downturn - probably since 9-11 which had both an immediate and long range economic impact on the industry which resulted in less passengers, less flights, less need for pilots. Add other factors, the recession, constant negative stories about TSA (groping being the most recent), cost-savings by corporate travelers and technology gains (you can have a live meeting involving people from different worldwide locations, with no one leaving their office) and you are looking at a current lowering of career opportunities.

Even if an upturn is going to happen, it feels very far away. And there are understandable fears that it might be permanent in the sense that the changes in the past years represent a society shift rather than a temporary response to a temporary problem.

Not exactly conducive to a positive attitude

Cubdriver

Without a doubt compared to many other professions, competition for the good jobs such as flying for a major airline is stiff at best. You will likely have to work for a long time in less than wonderful working conditions just to have a crack at it and there is a strong possibility you may never make it to a major. In addition there is also a very real possibility that even if you make it a major the company may go under as Delta almost did a few years ago. The cyclical nature of the industry also means you may be furloughed at some point in your career. Or you may lose your medical which for some people is a problem. While I agree with Noy the airline industry is still depressed after 911, that is pretty long in the past at this point and there are other factors to consider. A few of them are:

1) Many of the good jobs at the majors have gradually been moved to the regionals in the last ten years, where life for the pilot is not as good. It is an economic effect and those jobs will never go back and in the sense of the glory days when full-sized airliners covered most of the domestic flight.

2) There is limited bargaining power afforded to pilot unions by the Railway Labor Act under because they can't go on strike. This regulatory effect has been a serious problem for labor negotiations for pilots, and it drives down quality of life in the industry. It looks like this effect is here to stay, but it could change.

3) The perceived glamor of the job of being a pilot oversupplies the airline industry with pilots working in competition with one another. This is social effect causes an economic effect. All the people wanting to fly drives down wages at the low end from entry level jobs up to the regionals and even to the majors. There is some hope this factor will go away as the public perception catches up with the reality of the job, but this is only beginning to happen now. I still meet people who think airline pilots start off with six figures and the number of new pilots entering the profession seems to be gradually dropping off.

4) Automation has greatly reduced the complexity of the job of flying airliners, and made it much safer as well. This technological effect has in turn made it possible to eliminate flight engineers and staff the airplanes in a more flexible way. This in turn lowers the value of the pilot profession and makes them more expendable in a very real sense. This effect is here to stay. I doubt airliners will ever do away with pilots completely however.

5) Internet ticket sales in the last ten years or so has made pricing of airline tickets extremely competitive and drove down the price of tickets. It has been shown reliably that people do not want luxury, they want cheap tickets. This is technological and economic effect is here to stay.

6) The threat of terrorism has made a change in the industry in the last ten years which will probably never go away. This is more of a botheration than anything else because ticket sales do not seem to be affected. As we know from the news, being a pilot entails less trust, convenience, and respect than it did before 9/11 due to all the new security measures.

There are other factors but you get the point. The industry is a tough one to succeed in. Pilots get frustrated and they come here and talk about it. There is some belief pilots are a personaility type that tends to complain more, but I am not sure that is the real problem. At any rate, you should be warned that it is a tough industry and it requires an unusual amount of devotion and patience.

rickair7777

It is only reasonable that some sort of upturn will occur, but every time we seemed on the verge of that since 2001 something else came along to squash it (SARS, War, Oil, economy, etc)

Even those of us who know rationally that there is likely to be growth in air travel SOMEDAY, and that pilots will have to start retiring again in a couple year still have a hard time getting over the psychology hurdle to find optimism...too many beatdowns I guess. It doesn't help that this is a very fragile industry and any little hiccup will send it into another tailspin. In addition to usual problems (previous paragraph) we are now at risk of being damaged by rampant environtmentalism. The hard-core greenies really do believe that none of us have any business flying anywhere, and that we should all just stay home and tend our gardens and ganga patches (exception made for the private jets of the environmental/political elite of course ).

As fas as not getting into the flying for money...that's OK up to a point. But we are all college educated professionals with five or six figures invested in career training. The current entry-level payscale used to something you suffered through for a year or two...but now we have folks going on a decade on regional FO pay. Also this career is EXTREMELY unstable...after years (decades) of furloughs, job-hopping, starting over at the bottom you really need six figures just to try and catch up.

Bottom line on the money...the current career path will not reliably provide for a family, especially if you get stuck at a regional or double-furloughed (UA) or permanently furloughed (AA). There's a difference between expecting to make $200K at age 25 and being able to support a family at age 45. The big purple elephant in the room is retirement...regionals DO NOT provide any sort of retirement worths mentioning (1% match is ludicrous) and if you don't get to a major young, you will be behind the curve before you start. Unless you devote a huge percentage of your meager regional pay to retirement investment (real investment, not the company 401k) you will NOT have the means to put kids through college or have a nice retirement (you might be able to afford to live in a single-wide on the outskirts of Tulsa and watch daytime TV). It's easy for the current zero-attention span generation to blow that off now though...they all just assume that they will retire as widebody CA's. The problem with that is that you are doing all the work up front in HOPES of a payoff at the end...but what if you don't get hired by a major (there will only be 3 or 4 to apply to in a decade)? What about BK or medical problems later in life?

Unfortunately an industry upturn will only improve hiring, it will not improve pay or stability...unless it is a sustained upturn lasting many years (which has never happened since deregulation).

The reason so many folks are negative is because there is a lot to be negative about. My suggestion is get a real career/skill, and then fly as a hobby...you can even do the airlines as a hobby if you have a flexible real job.

pilot1278

First of all, not everyone is saying the same thing. Some complain about some aspect of their profession, while others complain about other aspects.

Second, this is a board that mostly caters to professional pilots, and allows them a way in which to vent about their profession, or to try and find ways of making it better.

Third, you haven't been paying much attention if you are asking "why are pilots so negative". Read some of the comments and complaints pilots have about the profession.

You are gung-ho about making it to the top and being successful and proving everyone wrong. Well, good for you. However, what will you do for others on your way to the top? Demand better wages? or QOL? Will you accept the first offer at joe-blow regional in a pay to play program in your ambitious climb to the top, or will you strive for better? Probably you'll do the latter, which is how most people go about it, which is why pilots will never get what they want out of the airlines, and why the airlines treat their pilots poorly.

I'm a complainer. I've never set foot in a 121 operation. I'm an instructor who has also done some 135 and Skydiving ops. However, I'm also successful, but in a field not related to Aviation. I wouldn't enter a 121 enviroment for all the tea in China unless things change for the better. I have some self-respect and I try to give others the same. Does my opinion seem negative? Probably. However, it's much closer to reality than dreaming aviation is all rainbows and butterflies. I'd rather give people a dose of reality than sell a false dream.

tomgoodman

True, but that's only one of the reasons. During the so-called "golden age", complaints about the job heavily outnumbered accolades too. Not necessarily a bad thing, since you don't get improvements by expressing your satisfaction with the way things are. Those few who say they love their career are often told: "Hush, or management will hear you." They also incur resentment from others who are less fortunate, and soon learn to soft-pedal their optimism.

Ottopilot

People are never happy. I even complain and I work for a major. Would I leave it? No. Would I rather be doing something else? No. We complain about our lost wages. How can you not complain about losing money? We complain about lost pentitions. I complain about being displaced out of the captain's seat (again, about money!). People complain about not getting hired at 500 hours. I had 4,000 when hired at a regional and 10,000 when hired at a major.

Bottom line is, if you want to fly, then do it. Don't give up. It's a long hard road and many don't make it or give up. Then they go on "Airline Pilot Forums" and complain.

Good luck, no matter what you do.

globalexpress

It is not just guys on this forum. Ask anyone. Do you know of any other jobs that require one to invest a high five figure, 6 figure sum of money and about 5 years of their life so that they can compete for a low five figure salary that they will likely earn for many years? This industry, for the past 25 years or so I have been in it, is awash in an oversupply of pilots during the GOOD years. Throw in 9/11, age 65, majors outsourcing the good jobs to crappy regionals, majors outsourcing the good jobs to "code share partners" on the upper end (UAL/Aer Lingus anyone?), the rise of LCC's undercutting our glory day wages, bankruptcies, etc., and you have what you have today- thousands upon thousands of unemployed and underemployed pilots, thousands more sitting on the sidelines working in another field waiting to get back in, thousands more staying in the military waiting to get out. And they're all going to be competing for those few scarce jobs worth having anymore with regional pilots with 1000's of quality hours of experience.

So I assume you're a new guy trying to get in. Other than this job being a really cool job (and it is), what positive things should we be screaming from the rooftops? That Eagle is hiring $20,000 a year F/O's who will likely be flying routes once flown by mainline pilots making a good living? Things have been bad for the past decade, things are bad now, and things don't look good in the immediate future.

Sorry, but that's reality. When the good stuff comes, we'll let you know!

rickair7777

Coincidentally, CNN did an article today on the "regional pilot retirement plan"...

Are you prepared to live on $190 a month when you retire? - Dec. 8, 2010