Did you leave flying?
 

After being furloughed once I wanted out of the career. I got out for a bit and decided id try it one last time. Now im seriously done. However I have no idea what I should do. So I thought id ask any of you who left what you ended up doing.

Do anything. I'd make more money selling oranges by the freeway.

What type of degree do you have? What are your interests besides flying? Do you have experience doing anything other than flying? I left a few years back and it was a good decision for me. Shoot me a PM and I can tell you what worked for me.

I have been working on my MA in English with a focus on TESL (Teaching English as a Second / Foreign Language) for the past 2.5 years. I plan to become an English instructor and maybe an aviation ground instructor at a local community college. Yes, it will be a pay cut but I am so burned out with the uncertainties in my schedule, crappy cold wx, early morning min. rest, and airlining all over the place as a fractional pilot. I also have lost all motivation to pursue an airline career and if I get the flying itch, I plan to just rent a C172 on a nice weather weekend.

So my suggestion is to find something that interests you and use your standby time or days off to study and get some credentials for your new career. There was another guy here on the forum who pursued his CPA and left flying to be an accountant. I think anything finance is a good career move, something you can do well into your sixties and perhaps into your seventies. If you want good initial pay, become an actuary. As for me, I plan to work as long as I can to stay active physically and mentally, just not flying.

Hope this helps.

My degree was in engineering (EE) and I was able to update it by taking a couple of networking courses which helped me get to my present position (software engineering).

If you're interested in tech., right now web programming is huge. In the Boston area there're a number of small startups in Cambridge who have a hard time finding people.

Something to think about.

Not very encouraging for me trying to leave an Engineering career for that 1st 17k regional job... :-(
I'd love to hear your reasons for leaving.

A better question in my opinion is why are you leaving a good job for a worse one? Smitten with the romance of flying? You would have to truly miserable and hopeless where you are for that move to make much sense. I would think real hard on that decision. Flying at the low end of the market is as much a daily grind as anything, there's less money to take home, and by the way you are not going home you are going to a hotel room again.

Agree with you, it's not an easy decision. I am just tired of it, sitting in an office all day, almost all the time in a conference call, dealing with corporate political nonsense. It really never ends! Sure the pay is not bad at all...
I've done this for more than 15 years and it's time to move on, now or never! I have to start at the bottom, no way around this unfortunately.

Ahh ok, so you are seriously ready for a change. I would still look at something besides flying. You are too late to have a reasonable shot at the majors. In the attempt you are risking everything. Chances are high you will get stuck at a regional and quit in 5 years. I have had rough spots in engineering as well. My last crisis, half the company was laid off. I seriously thought about bailing out for a CPA. That idea was to hang out a shingle in some small town and work half a day, fly the other half. If I did not happen to have an excellent engineering job now that is what is probably what I would be doing, but regional airlines? That's a young man's game at best.

I'm coming up on the five year anniversary of when I walked into my engineering manger's office and gave my two week notice. I was a newly minted commercial pilot, and only had a job offer to sit behind the desk of a flight school 2,000 miles away while I finished my CFI. It was a terrifying decision, but I'm a MUCH happier person now. I don't regret it at all, and so far things have worked out ok.