Rotors2Planks

Not being able to actually take time off is a deal breaker for me. I've read that guys had to threaten to quit, which is really just immoral and disgusting in my opinion. People have lives and shouldn't have to worry about losing their job because they want to see Grandma a couple times a year before she dies. No amount of money or experience is ever worth loss of that kind of time, you'll never get that time back and you'll live with regret until the end if you put flying above those things. Anyway, I do hope they can figure something out. I would consider them if they started to show some respect for pilots' lives. The home basing is interesting, not sure how you would get to work though. For people like me who aren't interested in 121 or impressed by a bigger tube with turbofans, they sound like a good place to build multi PIC and get some real experience.

Jetlife

Might as well get interested in 121, because it doesn't matter what you fly, it's how much time you have off and how much you get paid. Only the majors offer that and lots more.

Rotors2Planks

What about EMS? Many are 7 on, 7 off and home every night (albeit 12 hour shifts minimum). If you can't fit things into 7 days off then nothing is going to work. I'm not talking about having an exact day off, I'm talking about enough days off in a row to live a little.

Jetlife

The money over time doesn't even come close to being comparable. Especially when you factor in retirement.

Rotors2Planks

That makes sense to me if you think you can realistically get hired at the Majors. Maybe I just have low standards or different priorities but I'd be happy to be home-based flying a turboprop for 70k w/ bennies. With the Majors, you'll also need to pay for a Bachelor's Degree, slog it out at the Regionals for 5-10 years (not contributing much to retirement for the duration and maybe paying off your Degree) and pay admission/boarding to as many <PoliticallyCorrect> Pilot Association Job Fairs as it takes.... OK, that one is a bit off topic. I'm sure a pilot could come out monetarily ahead in the end but at what cost in other aspects of his/her life? Anyway, I think there are people out there like me in a similar boat that would consider Amflight if they manage to adjust their culture to be more friendly towards pilots. I don't know how they're going to do it though, it's kind of a catch 22 when they already are running short staffed.

Jetlife

No offense but have you been paying attention to the industry at all? 10 years at a regional right now? Not even close. And only two top tier airlines require degrees, and both have previously dropped hat requirement, they will do it again. AMF is not a career job. I would say that you need to raise your standards and confidence because you can do way better for a career.

There are great jobs out there flying private jets. Fractionals like NetJets are pretty good, EMS runs the spectrum but I don't know anyone who would make it a career. 91 corporate flying can be really good or really crappy, and the job security is terrible.

For somebody looking for that first professional job, there is no quicker path to money, QOL, longevity, retirement, and a great career at the majors than through a regional. Lots of BS gets thrown around at places like AMF that gives pilots a false sense of their place in the food chain. Truth is, it's a terrible choice when you can go be a captain of a jet flying 121 in a year or two. Then the world is yours. 70k sounds good now but trust me there are ways to work less and get paid lots more.

Rotors2Planks

5-10 and how do we know yet? Yes, the guys already at regionals are moving up but that's not necessarily true for someone joining a regional today, there are number of things that could happen between now and 2021 to flip things upside down. I've seen the retirement #'s and graphs but that's best case scenario and you wouldn't know it looking at the stats of recent hires. I've heard of a few cases recently of no BA/BS degree hires but thought they were exceptions... are you sure they're dropping that? As for a career at AmeriFlight, that's a miscommunication and definitely not what I was implying or intending, I just mean I'd consider them to build time up to 2500ish if they ever improve. As for EMS, there are quite a few guys that do make careers there... not sure what's so bad about that?

Jetlife

There are several airlines that don't require a degree. I would have to look again but I think only SWA and AAL require it. I have a degree so I haven't paid attention to that prerequisite in a long time. But both of those carriers have hired folks without degrees in the past when hiring was booming.

AMF is ok if you already live in base and you have a twisted desire to fly planes from a bygone era and to be treated like a piece of meat rather than an employee. I still have a couple friends there and the culture hasn't changed much at all.

A couple years at a regional and you can pick your poison for your next job. You'll be ripe for an LCC, charter, fractional, EMS, possibly legacy airline. 2 years at AMF and you'll be ripe for a regional, spend another 2 years and Frontier might pick you up. Your day to day QOL won't be great. You could go leave for EMS from AMF.

Good luck in whatever you choose. There are lots of options out there that will suit your needs. It's hard to recommend to go fly freight when you can have a better life while getting better quality time in the logbook. I came from AMF, and I have a good job now so it benefitted me, but I had to do a few stepping stones along the way. I also watched dozens of people leave AMF for the regionals. The amount of people that went from flight instructing, to AMF, to a career airline job within the last 10-15 years can be counted on two hands.

hotice

I don't know why you are trashing EMS so much. QOL is everything for us. The 4 of us at my base are career EMS. I think the schedule is very hard to beat. Talk about a cake job. It is pretty easy most of the time. I did want to go 121 but the recession of 08 had other plans for me. The QOL has kept me here. Besides, I make 90 to 100K/ year doing this depending on how much OT I want to pick up. Tell me how I will be able to feed my family if I went to the airlines.

Tpinks

Actually, without having the time to look, I don't think SWA required it on the last change of minimums, nor do you even have to have the type rating anymore.

And I know for a fact that American does not require as that is the reason it is ranked above Delta for me if I were able to go to one today.