cactusmike

Your first two points are the reason I loved widebody flying. I enjoyed my time at each destination (well, maybe not DEL). But the productivity can’t be beat, and who doesn’t enjoy being paid to nap?

MacrossJet

But how many of those will make actually it from 250-1500/ATP? Getting 250 in primary training is easy. Its the whole time building to 1500, that is the real test of a pilots patience, while they're "paying their dues." There's more supply than jobs available at the low-time building jobs. Insurance is also a factor. That pipeline/survey job from years ago that hired at 250 now wants 750-1500tt. And the competition for these jobs, even flight instructor jobs is fierce. I've seen/heard of a lot of pilots after they get their wet CSEL, get fed up trying to get to 1500 and throw in the towel. Because either the pay sucks, or because they just can't get in front of an interviewers face.

bonvoyage

I think in the past I saw a statistic that only about 10% of students that start PPL training make it to a flight deck. It’s always gonna be that way

TOGALOCK

And good riddance to those that throw in the towel. They don’t love this career enough to make it. 2500-3000 total and 500-1000 multi used to be extremely common to land your first 121 gig where you got the honor of getting paid 16k per year AND possible had to pay for your own 121 training. I have zero sympathy for those that have to build 1500 hours and barely break double digits in multi time.

1500 total, almost no multi, no college degree, near 6 figure starting pay at the regionals… It’s never been a better or easier time to become a pilot. If someone can’t have the patience to hack it now I’ll happily make sure the door doesn’t hit them on the way out.

Blunt post? Yes. But it needed to be said.

BurnCycle

Exactly. If you don't have the patience or drive to get 1500 total and 25 multi to land a 6 figure job even at the regionals, you don't belong in this field.

sailingfun

It once took 3000 hours total time and 500 multi to get a regional give you a look. 1500 is a cakewalk compared to years ago.

Brickfire

Agree

There also used to be many more (frequently awful) jobs between cfi and regional too

WHACKMASTER

Meh…it’s a lot easier today than it was for us years ago. I’m sure it’s still challenging but I don’t think you’ll find too much collective sympathy.

kevin18

That was done by guys climbing over each others backs to get low paying jobs that weren’t worth it. Eventually people wised up and said eff this industry. The pilot pool dried up and wages went up.

Now all the pilots who kept pay down and hours requirements up are saying they had it tougher…

rickair7777

You are beyond clueless and insulting. This is one of those times when you really need to walk a mile in another man's moccasins before opening your mouth.

You obviously did not experience the economic landscape 40-50 years ago... good jobs were hard to find, in fact *any* job could be hard to find and I'm not talking about an 18 month downturn.

The alternative was go live at home and spend your days waiting in the union hall for your number to come up (OBTW they were slowly closing all the factories). Or join the Navy.


Also I'll give you the benefit of that doubt on this, because you probably simply don't know: Back then, the vast majority of major airline pilots were military. There was no shortage of those (due to DoD force structure... lots of airplanes). So civilians were at a severe disadvantage... if they didn't jump through the hoops, then fine airlines would just hire more military. So yes people were willing to bend over backwards to be one of the few civilians hired at the bigs. That persisted really until the rise of the RJ's, which roughly coincided with the post-cold war military drawdown.