Sulkair,

These guys are in stable, corporate jobs paying north of 150k with good skeds. It's all about the trade-offs that work for the individual. One has a 10-minute commute; has planned time off; good benefits and loves the job. No, not easy to find.

GF

I would like one of those jobs too.

If I can inject a little optimism amongst all of this negativity, it's to tell you all that AA has always significantly understated its hiring #s in the past. Case in point, when they announced hiring back in '97, it was an unspectacular smallish number to begin with. They eventually ended up hiring almost 1500 pilots over the course of 3 years... WELL above what they'd ever planned or announced.

Today will be no different. Barring another major catastrophe, I'm casting my lot with a number way higher than 1500 over 5 years.... closer to 2500-3000, strictly based on retirements, new FAA duty regs, and forecast growth.

Back to the little black cloud... ;)

I don't talk about this crap at work unless someone else starts the conversation. I commute 4 hours to ORD from the west coast because they closed LAX, keep my head down and try not to hang myself on the overnights, not start frustrating conversations. Most people who aren't in love with aviation realize the career is pretty awful anyway, it's not a hot topic.

I guess once you lose hope though you don't have anything left so I'll leave the unicorn and rainbow people their "massive" hiring at AA and duck out of the pathetic conversation. Good luck.

Retirement numbers are very small for the next 5 years, they've been widely exaggerated around here but guys who've flowed over have showed people in the crew room the numbers. Something like 63 next year increasing over the next 5 but doesn't hit anything significant til 5+. Alot of those projected hiring numbers are based off expansion, which is speculation.

Dude, your 30. You already have some longevity at your airline, have 35 years left and you're talking like your life is over already. I didn't even get hired at my regional until I was 30 and that was 13 years ago at the start of the worst decade in aviation history but I still managed to make it to a major. Here you are in the same position at the forefront of the best outlook the airlines have had in years!

My advice would be to count your blessings, keep working that network and DRASTICALLY change your attitude... just trying to help ya!

There is an AA pilot who is 30?

Where did you get that from his post?

Because the post right above that is Bzzt talking about retirements being small for the next 5 years and it sounds like he was the AA pilot. Who is the 30 year old referring to?

C'mon. Reading comprehension?

JetMonkey is CLEARLY stating that Bzzt has some time at his Regional airline at age 30 when he himself was simply a new hire at a regional at age 30.

(Damn, man. Reading comprehension seems to be a lost art on this forum)