I am not new to the business. But being that i am not 121 yet and not representing the airline that i will be working for. I am going to tell a passenger to eat it when we are already in the air and i seriously doubt the pilots are going to deviate and drop me off because i told someone to shut their mouth.

 

I don't believe your story. Nobody has that little class...

 

Remind me...who was the tool in this story?

 

I believe it. It no longer surprises me how clueless a very few new guys are even in the interview process.

I recall a flight during the most recent AA furlough period. AA hadn't hired in years, yet low and behold we had young "skippy" on a "A Pass" sitting in FC on his way to DFW.

Seems our young buck became quite a demanding arse during his ride. When they figured out he was on a company pass, they asked him what AA business was he going to at DFW.

He smugly replied that he was interviewing for a pilot position at American Airlines and became even more of an arse when they corrected him with "You mean Eagle?" several times over.

Not sure, but I think they followed up their experience with him.

 

 

Dude.

Really?

 

If it weren't true, why are there so many OLD guys still around? Guys don't want to admit it, but we do what we do because we like doing it.

Or maybe it's just me. I actually like my job. How many people do you know that can say that?

 

Well, we're all posting here aren't we? I can assure you, I sure as hell wasn't browsing and posting on engineering forums during my off time back in the 8-5 days!

 

Its a good job (over all at many places) for sure, and I'm all about counting one's blessings and being greatful in general. I was just shuddering at the "OMG I get paid to fly!" nonsense because of how that often translates into acceptance and apathy towards working to get back to where we need to be. Lots of people love what they do, but they would be pretty ticked off if they suddenly faced 50% pay cuts, loss of pension, longer days, more days, etc and I bet a lot more would quit than do in this sector. The profession is still underpaid IMO, and while only a small part of that could ever be attributed to bright eyed jobaphiles, you still see a lot of that at the entry level. Its part of what fuels scum like NAI because no matter how devious the operation is, there's always someone giddy at just getting paid to fly or the lure of shiny new jet Captain their first year, etc.

Its also part of what fueled the cut throat regional industry for a long time. "Paris-First-Class-International" has up until very recently (due in part to the outrageous government fueled cost inflation of all things "education") provided limitless supply at the entry level.

Maybe Shy didn't even mean it like that, I don't know. But it came across like blanket justification from a perpetual state of awe that ends up being little more than a fulcrum management industry wide uses against us. I have a friend who has been working on his ratings for a million years but never "gets it done" yet he constantly spews that "if I could only bask in the honour of getting paid to fly it would be so awesome!" and that just makes my skin crawl.

 

Solid point. What was the old joke...in the air we talk about women, on the ground we talk about jets. Cheers H