So widebodyjunkie, what do you think… still want in ;)?

Yea let me be the first to say DONT DO IT! Go anywhere, do anything, I dont care, just dont become an airline pilot. Like working 16 hour days and get paid for 3? Like staying in hotels 5 days out of the week? Like getting 4 hours of sleep? If you answer no to any of these, DONT DO IT!

PS the debt to income ratio is horrible, at least thats what my loan companies say.

There was a post about not commuting to work. It's two fold. I've done both, lived in base and commuting (currently commuting), and i will say that commuting is much more stressful than living in base. On the other hand, i've had several buddies, some who moved to St. Louis to be based at "home" and others who moved to the domicile that they're company placed them in. Because regional airlines do things at the discression of the major they're working for, bases can open or close very quickly, leaving you, the employee with a 1 year lease in some undesirable location. Same happens for you if you get furloughed, one buddy was lucky, and some of his co-workers picked up the slack on his lease after his furlough, now, they're getting furloughed also, and will have an apt. in a city that they didn't have much interest in being in. So, like i said, it's a two edged sword. Not sure about most, but my crappy regional will also not compensate you much (if any) for making a move across country for the company, over here, you'll have to fight to get the days off to actually do the move itself.

Go talk to Kit Darby, head to Embry Riddle and in a few months youll be up there Captaining a big widebody and taking in the great view from your office in the sky!!........o sh%t I was sleep typing!!

So basically I need to decide on rather or not I'm okay with living off crappy pay, possible furlough's, long exhausting schedules for the majority of my airline career? i'm not soo sure I can do that....how the hell does anyone live on 30K a year? It can be done i'm sure, but you'd have to sacrafice a lot...and for what! To be employed by an airline, making peanuts for pay, and praying every single day that you still have a job when you go to work? What posseses people to go into this profession with this much of a stagnant outlook?

What about airline pilots that transition into something else? Say....go to work at a regional for a year or two to build up the turbine time, would you have much luck being able to get on at a corporate job that way? I'm going to probably guess no, because so many pilots today are trying to get out of the airlines and into the corporate job so......competition baby!!

Good Question! Pre-9/11 there appeared to be excellent prospects for moving on to a major after 4 years (or less) with a regional. Major airline CA pay approached or exceeded $300K at the top end, and work rules and QOL were better back then. I personally could not have made the same justification to switch careers today that I did back then.


Right now, the market might be kind of tight. A corporate wanna-be has two options...

1) Network his way up through GA. This is time-consuming, and it can be hard to get the turbine PIC needed for the best jobs. There is often no seniority system...if you are a co-pilot and your captain quits, odds are they will hire another captain off the street instead of promoting you if you don't have the PIC they want. Often insurance dictates the experience requirements, so the owner's hands are tied.

2) Go regional first and get a few 1000 hours of turbine time, and hopefully 1000 turbine PIC. The advantage here is you have the underlaying base experience for insurance purposes. The downside is that many corporate operators are leary of airline pilots...we basically show up, walk on the airplane, pre-flight, and go. The corporate pilot has many more duties, including flight-planing, cleaning, and customer interaction. It's a different mind-set, and some pilots with the "Airline Stink" have trouble adapting. But if you wanted to do it you could, but you would have to work to break into corporate at the entry level. Be aware that you definately need to be sociable and people-oriented, more so than airlines.


Also corporate is a mixed bag...many operators are shady or downright dangerous, and working conditions and schedules are often poor. The best corporate jobs have pay and QOL approaching the the best (most senior) airline jobs.

A couple college friends are on the corporate track right now. One went to airline training, didn't like it, and came back home. He then came back home, found a job flight instructing and flying some charter work. The charter work lead to a job flying in a bank's corporate flight department, and he was just recently typed on their jet. Another couple guys found different flight instruction type jobs that in addition would have them fly right seat on the flight schools king air. The company does charter work in the king air, and has a couple of citations as well for charters and occasional life flight type work. Idea is to work your way from flight instructor, to right seat of the prop, left seat of the prop (get that turbine pic), then right seat on the jet, then PIC on the jet.

Finding these jobs is often the problem, sometimes you're competing with tons of guys, but often not. The companies will often be able to fill the jobs without even putting an ad in the paper, just from word of mouth of "my buddy flies, i bet he'd be interested." and so on. Right place right time seems to really fit.

Some corporate jobs also require you to be married to your cell phone. Yes, they can provide you with good pay, great locations, and the opportunity to bring your golf clubs along and play 18 while your management is in a business meeting. But, you've gotta be willing to live the "playboy" lifestyle for some time, expecting to make plans with your friends/family can be very difficult, if they can call you up the night before, or even day of and expect you to show up. A different friend of mine was doing that for quite some time. Said he hadn't stayed in a hotel in a month or so. Spends most of his time doing trips out and back. But, has no scheduled days off a month. I myself couldn't live with only know i had a day off the day after it occurred.

There have been a lot of regional and probably even some major guys going over to the fractionals. In a nutshell, most pay better than regionals, some much much better. The top tier one right now starts you off at a regional Captain wage in the mid to upper 60's. You'd expect a 7 day on and 7 day off schedule, and a much nicer quality of life. Down this avenue though, you will be dealing with tons of direct competition from other airline pilots, as many would LOVE to land this job.

Sadly enough I still think I want in. I'm an optomist in this situation, and hope that fuel prices will stabilze a little more and the economy will become much more stable, therefore allowing the airlines to eventually continue to operate and start to generate revenue and movement of pilots....but who's to say it will happen or not. no way of knowing! In my case, I'm thinking of trying to get on with a good regional. Based on the research I've done, I determined that Skywest, Eagle, ASA, Comair, and Jetlink are some of the best. But I could be way off....anybody wanna weigh in? What airlines would you say are "good" in terms of QOL, least amount of furloughs, and pay?

The problem with judging regionals is that they are all subcontractors, and can (and usually will be) underbid by another regional.

What is true today in regional-land, may not be the case in two years.

SKW has a good track record at dodging bullets.

Jetlink has dodged a few, but not all.

ASA is owned by SKW now.

COMAIR and Eagle are both owned by their majors and are technically not subcontractors...however both are on the auction block, so it's not safe to assume that they will retain their protected status forever. When they get kicked out of the fold, they will eventually have to re-bid for their own jobs (this happened to jetlink).

Horizon is good in many respects, but they are in a major downsizing now.

Air Wisconsin is decent, but not sure what their growth plans or opportnuties are right now.

I'd probably avoid all the other jet regionals.

Are you going to go way into debt to do this?