Okay - I'm really not a rabid member of the Skyhigh fanclub, but the reality is this industry sucks. My timing might have been a little off, and I may have made some poor choices along the way, but I really think I've done most of the right things at the right times. I'm in my mid 40's, and wondering where I go if my current carrier tanks. If I were 30, I could gamble on a lot of different places. I did that almost 15 years ago, and the roulette wheel turned up on green for me. Most of the people I work with are looking around themselves and asking the same questions.

It's not a question of five years of sacrifice - been there done that, didn't mind paying the price. The issue is if five years leads to another five years, followed by another five years, and another five years, and so on. Except for a fortunate few, is there really any future in this industry? Sure you might hit the jackpot and hire on with a winning carrier when you're 28 - or you'll bounce from one place to another searching for that place where you can hopefully upgrade in less than ten years and try and earn something for the future rather than paying last month's bills. My kids deserve better than I am able to give them, thanks to the corner I'm painted into at this time.

It's easy to claim it's just sour grapes for a naysayer. As an analogy [actual events tonight], I bought a bottle of wine this evening for a small gathering. I paid almost twice as much for that bottle as I did for one just a couple of days ago, but it was what I could locate at the time. The bottle of a couple days ago was quite pleasant, tonight's was simply awful. Am I the bad guy for admitting tonight's bottle was putrid rather than lavishing false superlatives upon it?

 

And therein lie the difference.
You can admit that one bottle of wine is good and another might be bad.
I'm willing to bet that you wouldn't try to tell everybody which bottle of wine is good or bad, but let them discover it for themselves, and in the process not call the people who like the bottle of wine that you didn't names, suggest that they can't care for their families, and make innuendoes that they only got the good bottle of wine because their family owns the winery. I think that takes warning others about a bottle of wine that you might not like a little to the extreme side

USMCFLYR

 

bcrosier,
You are right in your analysis of how it can all go very wrong, but that doesn't mean it can't go very right as in any career choice. I think the key is not to incur debt to attain your goal and to prepare with an education that delivers course corrections. The aviation degree is a non-starter and incurring huge debts in the process starts one in servitude. In my son's case I described him as an excellent student, with a desire to explore aviation as a potential. Because I retired from the Air National Guard, we know that option is achievable, though he will have to earn the UPT slot on his own merit. With academic scholarships and GI bill he can graduate debt free and hopefully earn that slot. If not, well he still has valuable work experience and a degree to build on. If he does get one, he flies heavies four or five years and is in position to network the unit's members to preferential hiring. He does have a dad that will have had 36 years with a major and a mom that worked many years ago for FedEx. Not a typical applicant, but the key is to focus on the objective, and to stack the odds. Too many people have believed the siren song that flight time and an aviation degree equates to major airline job. For many it has worked, for many more it hasn't. Excellence is excellence, it can't be taken away, it presents opportunity. Opportunity is risk, but in a few years with dramatic retirements in our career, risk can be managed. At no time in my lifetime will there have ever been such opportunity as is coming in a few years.

 

I would agree with your thoughts. IF he goes the military route to get experience, IF he gets a degree with value outside of aviation, etc.

Most people can't or won't line all of those ducks up.

When I signed up for this program it was a vastly different landscape than exists now (as you well know), it was a worthwhile and respected profession. I'm just not convinced it's going to get back there any time soon - I hope I'm wrong (and soon).

 

Actually, this stuff was so bad I wouldn't have given it to my dog. That said, us cheapskate pilots did manage to finish the two bottles ("This is really awful, good thing we're almost through with it")!

I get your point, but I unless it was a wine tasting, I actually would point out that I didn't think that bottle was very good - I'd hate to see someone waste their money on it when they could get something else much better for the same or even less cost.

If they choose to buy it or happen to like it, well, that's their decision.

 

And that is what you need to do no doubt.
Go into the wine store with eyes WIDE OPEN and know that you like to drink wine.
But imagine someone out there who owns a wine store, says he likes wine, hangs out at wine expos, talks about opening up a winery again someday; yet says that there isn't a single good bottle of wine out there.

Extremism in any form is not good.

USMCFLYR

 

Sky makes some good points, but fails to make them over the broad range of other employment options. There is no easy path.

Liking the wine analogy, making a good wine is far more complex than most imagine. The rewards are defined by the effort.

Doctors may start 300-1,000k in debt, there is no sure thing. Life is not what you get handed, but what you do with it after you get it.

Just like a stock trade, it matters not so much what you buy, but what you do with it after you buy.

 

Extremism? What is extreme about saving lives? Should advocates for the cessation of drug abuse be moderate? What about an alcoholics anonymous counselor? Should they take a middle of the road approach? I understand that many here do not share my perspective on aviation, but that does not mean that being one sided is wrong either.

Aviation is powerfully addictive. Young people especially permit themselves to be swept away by their passions. As a recovering aviation addict who has a new perspective on the situation I understand how massive the pull is. The only hope of reaching those who are on the border is through a firm approach. Because once the eyes glaze completely over it is too late.

Show me where moderation is common and I can show other examples where it definitely is not; congress, the PTA, world views. We all are extremists when it comes to issues that we are passionate about. If you don't believe in your position strongly then why comment at all?

Skyhigh

 

As an airline pilot one of the greatest benefits I received was the ability to sit next to a guy who was perhaps 30 years my senior and use the month to completely get to know him or her and take careful measure the depth of their dissatisfaction and despair, to dissect the story of their lives into individual decisions at key moments. In a quest to understand the forces that got them there.

Climbing the ladder of aviation you pass thorough the layers of the bungled and the botched in hopes of reaching the top where you can then break out into the sun. I can understand why those who were stuck on rungs far below were apathetic or depressed,. The goal was to achieve the promised land.

Increasingly however as the years and decades passed the promised land has gotten farther and farther away. Companies that just a few years ago were the envy of the industry are now just a shade away from being a regional airline sweatshop. Commonly now the ladder stops short of reaching the sun. The fallout of a life spent in an under preforming career can be catastrophic.

I am a husband and father first. I love to fly but hold a holistic approach to my life. I can not afford to let my passion for aviation impair other aspects that I value. Others are out there who are like myself. They value home, family, friends, financial security and a healthy lifestyle. It is they whom I write to in hopes of saving them from making a bad decision for themselves or at least to carefully do the math with their eyes wide open before making the sacrifice.

Some are pilots who are married with children while others are husbands and fathers who fly for a living.

Skyhigh

 

When I was first starting out in aviation the world was much different then. I think that many here either do not know or would like to forget just how things were for airline pilots not all that long ago. Back then airline pilots lived among the top in society. They were paid like surgeons and were well respected. They had much more influence and control over their lives then they do now.

Airline pilots flaunted their wealth. In my home town a JAL captain came home from a long trip one day to a wife with a fist full of divorce papers. Begrudgingly and with head held low he went through the motions of separating possessions with his wife in a solemn manner. She of course got their family house. The day after his divorce was final the JAL captain with a greatly reversed attitude brought his second family to town from overseas and bought the biggest ranch in the county. For decades he had lived a secret life abroad and had siphoned off a fortune from his bloated income into hidden ventures in foreign lands.

My point is not to paint airline pilots from the past as devious but as an example of how much money they use to make, In this case so much that his American wife did not notice the deduction of a small fortune from their communal income. As a high school kid my best friends father was a senior DC-10 legacy airline captain. One day when skipping school my friend brought the mail into the family kitchen table as we sat there eating captain crunch for lunch. .He casually proceeded to open a letter to his father that contained his paycheck for the month. After taking a look at it and not wanting to be rude he slid it over to me for inspection. What I saw amounted to nearly a half years salary for my father.

The DC-10 captain made a shocking fortune and lived like a Greek God. His hobby it seemed was to make atrocious business mistakes. He invested in crazy schemes and real estate developments that seemed to go up in smoke once the check cleared. It all just bounced off and he went on to the next catastrophe. The limits of his income seemed to be boundless. The opportunities that his family had as a result of his airline career were incredible. They spent the summers in France and winters in Hawaii. They bought a huge farm just for a place to ride motorcycles and shoot clay pigeons. They were incredibly well off.

Now before the “love flying” crowd begins to get ramped into action my point is that things have changed considerably. Flying is fun but it has lost much over the last two decades, I think it is important to keep sight of that if nothing more then as a measure of the ground that has been lost. Furthermore income and control over ones life are important elements of overall happiness. A good income means choices. It means having increased control over your life and it serves to help one absorb the blows that life can deliver. Another poster here on APC wrote that in the early 1980s he earned the equivalent of 420K as a 737 captain for USAir. He went on to explain that as a first officer he made more back then than he does now as a senior captain.

It is of the highest morals to desire a life of one who freely follows their passions but it comes at a price. In years past Americans could permit themselves to flights of fantasy. In the new economy the prudent position will increasingly be that of conservation and an eye on the reality of what it takes to make a living. Following your passions are great for those with a cushion to fall on should things go wrong. As a nation we do not have that luxury anymore, Careers need to provide a living and offer a surplus to pay off things like student loans, houses and to self fund a retirement that could last for decades. As pilots wee need the 1970’s back in a big way.

Skyhigh