Bingo! Yeah I saw the glass comment for a second and thought.. WHAT?! For who!? but yeah... Anything ATR size or bigger sure - you've got glass but are also 121. Still analog dial radios for me.

 

Be Patient. Back in the 80's you had to be a CFI for a few years and fly turbo props for 3-5 years before the majors came knocking. You new guys need to have a little patients and pay your dues. It's not the norm to go fly a jet with 250 hours.

 

the industry is cyclical true and it is an extremly dynamic industry and is always changing, adapting to the world around it, it has always been this way and will continute to be this way.

 

There is NO rational behind the airline industry.

 

I can't believe insurance companies give a pass to such low time pilots. I had a four year aviation degree from a Big-Ten university and had been flying for 10 years at that point. (10 years ago). I had a job (better paying than now) on a small business jet and metro waiting for me and they said, "No FREAKIN' way". Now look where they draw the line. Amazing how that happens.

As for the future in this wacky world, I see a handful of Global airlines with a bunch of feeders rolling each other for awhile unless ONE simple thing happens. I wrote this in another thread but it applies here. Whether this simple "thing" happens, I doubt it but this merger with NWA / Delta is the PERFECT time to start throwing weight around on some of these items.

"The answer to all of this is with the legacy carriers MEC's. They need to lay down the law to management that they get no more than 2 regionals that work on behalf of XXX. Then legacy carrier XXX gets flow back and flow through with those regionals.

I'm sure, like always, the legacy pilots will come back with the 'ol, "They'll want us to give up something to get that and we don't want to do it."

Ok, enjoy the furloughs while the 4-8 regionals take up the flying.

This started at the top and it must end with the legacy pilots. This will, in fact, weed out some regionals but that has needed to happen for a long time now."

Forgot to add that the two regionals flying for XXX must be wholly owned by the legacy parent WITH profit sharing agreements with the labor groups. This gives management incentive as they know the labor groups want the best for the airline too.

 

The way things are now, it's not like one of the prior cycles. The other cycles were from airline mis management, and other economic factors. The rebound isn't going to be as high as in prior years. The fact is, oil was never a factor in the previous downtimes. ( OK, maybe about three weeks or so back in the gulf war.)

 

In the 747 I fly, the only glass is in the windscreen, and on the faces of all those round dials and such My point is that there are lots of big airplanes out there that are great jobs, albeit not all that modern, and you may actually have to "fly" the airplane once in a while.

 

I personally want out of glass...Not as cool as you'd think it would be...

 

There is no rhyme or reasons to the airline industry. Their history is always to expand until the day they begin to furlough. Right now oil is the driving factor in the industry. If if goes down and stays down, things will improve. If it doesn't, things won't improve. I suspect we won't see a hiring boom as we did in 1999, 2000, or 2007, but hiring for attrition will take place. It will just be very select and very random.

 

Exactly! Instruct for 3 to 5 years while getting paid $12,000 a year and then maybe eventually you can get that high paying job at the regionals making a whopping 20K! But don't worry because after another 5 years or maybe 10 years you will get that great gig at CAL for 30K and no health insurance. Once you make your way through a "well" paid Capt. you can pay off you debt and by the time you are you can start living a decent life with decent schedule. Oh, and that's the best case scenario because you might get furloughed...