Without a doubt, as not many are going to the majors. But mostly people leave within the first year. It is unusual to stick it out for three years and then leave just before you upgrade.

 

Instead of quitting all together, try corporate or freight. I heard its better!

 

Welcome to the "I aint taking anymore of this crap" club.

 

Hey Man!

First of all, BRAVO! Ofcourse it's so easy for us to sit here and command ya for doing the right thing. I myself am just getting to the point where i'm applying to the regionals and am already frustrated without even stepping my foot at the door.

I really do command ya for doing what's right for **you**. I wish I had more of the guts to tell that to my current boss and maybe a couple airlines so they would know what they could do with their extention of 'invitations' to join their crowds.

However, I am curious and would very much like to get the realistic point of view. I wanna know why you quit after three years, everything that there is to expect from them without sugar coating it.... would you mine sharing that with me/us?

Any comment would very much be appreciated!

-schone

 

I agree. Aviation is going to get interesting as they push the more skilled highly goal oriented people away. It seems that most all pilots I know are very goal oriented driven individuals and as aviation turns into a normal bus driving gig I see them leaving to pursue other interests that meet their goals in life.

Also - Pay, Lifestyle, Management, High Job Insecurity, Deteriorating Future, Loss of prestige, are all reasons people leave aviation now and move on in life. Its not just about being Captain of a jet. If the requirements stated abv are met then what seat does it matter that you are in.

 

First off let me say YES it was a good decision to leave Pinnacle. When you are constantly thinking of ways not to go to work and when you are there you are not happy and want to walk off the flight it is time to leave. I don't know about you but I don't want my family flying on a flight with a somewhat disgruntle pilot in the cockpit.

Flying Ninja, I have already been down the corporate route and it is not a pretty one either. I flew the G4 and G5 aswell as the Citation X (Typed in all three.)for a company in ATL out of PDK, until their planes were taken away for not paying the bills... Corporate Flying is fun because you get to see much more desirable destinations than your regional counterpart IE Aspen, Frankfurt and so on but, you have no life because your pilot group is so small they run you life.

As for airlines not making money I am well aware of the economic structure of these companies especially Northwest. When a company sells all of its assets then leases its old property back from the leasing company things tend to only go downhill from there.

Space Monkey, I am fully aware of the the way Pinnacle gets paid. That is why you will see a flight delayed for 6 hours with ****ed off PAX, instead of rebooking them on another flight just so Pinnacle will get paid for that one flight segment.

Tinpusher007, I could have held the Left seat from my initial class but if you must know I do have my own successful business(NOT run like an airline) and quality of life is very important to me. Even now people close to my senoirity are barely holding 12 days off a month, and then getting extended into their days off. So I chose not to pursue that ave. I would have quit regardless. Though Pinnacle is just not a company that I was proud to work for but, having a seperate income made it that much easier.

FlyerNY, I can see that you understand. I am glad that someone does and that you are not looking for extenuating circumstances which there wasn't
My quitting very well planned out so that I would not get screwed out of anything owed. I took my vacation in January to use that time and then slowly over the 6 month time period use my sick bank. After all that on the day I quit I called My wealth manager at UBS and asked hom to roll over my 401K so they would not have a chance to get me by the sack.

Schone, There is nothing to sugar coat. If you like your life run by people who make $8hr. you will love this job. Don't get me wrong. I still love to fly but I don't think that doing it for a living is for me anymore...

I hope that this answered some questions

 

All right, 9E-TB! You are an inspiration to me. I never really wanted to run my own business, but having been flying freight for a few months now it is starting to look more appealing. My brother started a framing/general construction business the same time I started this gig and he is now making multiple times what I make and is his own boss (and the boss of others). He just turned 24. The little punk. Well done. The reason I fly freight in a 207 is because I am unwilling to stoop to pay below 20 dollars and hour, even if its only for a year. The regionals need to understand that its not ok, heck its not even safe. You just showed some people that at Pinnacle. Bravo.

 

And as for the BS retirement boom thing. So there's going to be like 12,000 pilots retiring by 2013. Yeah, so what. Interesting statistic. One of mine is that people who make stastics are as accurate at predicting the future as a gypsy with a crystal ball. But that's not even the point. There's always people retiring. There's many, many thousands of pilots. (You aren't nearly as elite as you would like to believe.) Frankly, I'm surprised that the Age 60 rule hasn't been extended yet, to at least age 62. Is a 61 year old who still meets the requirements of a 1rst class med less fit than a 59 year old?

 

The crazy thing is, people talk about that retirement boom thing and think, wait, assume that it's 12,000 pilots from today! I'm sure someone said that about 5 years ago. So for the sake of argument, that's a 12 year period. Which makes it 1000 jobs per year. Hrm...I wonder if people still talk the boom when you put things in that perspective.

 

Flying ninja,
You never answered my question from another thread. I am curious about you and CAPT. Did you do any research before you decided to plunk down the cash and go for that "training" program?