Agreed. The profession had its peak and now its just little troughs here and there in terms of professional growth. It does not seem the industry is advancing in terms of pay, qol, stability. There are good companies out there, but taken as a whole there is more loss than net gain in how the industry is doing. But lets be honest that isn't going to stop enough people from wanting to fly for a living to raise the bar.

Furloughed is the best
 

Being furloughed is the best outcome during a downturn. When things get going again furloughed pilots just pick up where they left off. They do not have to remain current. They don't have to prove themselves again. Just show up for ground school.

During the boom times I always advocated for a quick trip to a regional. Some thought it would be fun to stick it out as an instructor thinking that the airlines would always be there anxiously awaiting their application. From experience I knew better.

People who are stuck out as instructors and have no 121 time are now at a huge disadvantage. That bit of short sightedness or bad luck could be a career ender. In any case the mountain that they have to climb just got a whole lot bigger.

Skyhigh

Unless you can do better with your time. I gave up my furlough. Just rather do something else than to be at the whim of this industry right now. Especially since I commuted to reserve......

Time will tell if it was the right decision. I do miss the cockpit, but don't miss ANYTHING else about the job. I sat in the cockpit for maybe 20 hours out of the 84 hours or so time away from base on any given 4 day trip. This doesn't consider additional time spent commuting or sleeping in the crashpad. So, that means I miss approximately 23% of the job and I gladly doffed the remaining 77% of it.

Amen to that. I actually realized i was home 1-1.5 days of the week. Even with 11 days off a month. Yeah, people will say "its your fault for commuting" and I would agree it was mine and many other folks choice. But the reality is it says alot about how much the pilot group has lost in terms of QOL, sacrifice(crashpad, eating, sleeping, being home) vs. benefit(flying) in the whole scheme of things.