And that's why we are seeing a shortage of well qualified applicants. What a miserable career path. If you are 18 or 20 it might be worth the sacrifice, but a lot of family guys aren't willing to sacrifice our families for a shot at the legacies someday. Of course the way the numbers are working out in 5-10 years the majors might be in the same hiring predicament as the regional world is now.


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Absolutely... While I don't think the career path is miserable necessarily, I certainly do not think it is an easy or even a fair endeavor to ask a family to go through with you. Unless of course you have a bread-winning spouse or very few bills. CFI pay is livable if you're young. And so is regional pay. However, at some point you have to start repaying debt and being able to enjoy some of the finer things. And that is simply difficult to do on regional pay. By the time you are a CA, maybe now you have a kid or two. That CA pay doesn't look so hot anymore. But that's life. I can't tell you how many mainline guys I talk to who complain about not making enough.

 

Although I'd love to fly airliners, it's just not worth sacrificing that 5-15 year old age bracket where I'll make the most memories with my kids... Especially when other segments of the industry are fairly comfortable. Alimony and child support can take a lot out of that mainline paycheck...


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Mainline guys would be unhappy making $300k a year.

 

Class makeup, circus clown red hair, nose and big floppy shoes will make you stand out as an obvious Ass. Chief Pilot candidate, or at least a Jr LCA.

 

I agree it is a really risky and expensive endeavor.

As much of a financial struggle it was back then, and as much time I spent "roughing it", I knew that this was the job I wanted. I never was a cubicle & keyboard guy. I also always liked being out on the job and not having a real boss. And even looking back on it all I did enjoy the journey to get to the final destination.

I was 24 yrs. old, traveling to places all the time, while my high school friends were stuck in typically crappy jobs as well, and couldn't get away from the winters while I would take off to FL a few times a month. I had paid medical, dental, a 401k contribution, travel benefits and more days off than my friends and family.

Of course the pay was marginal, but I had friends that were newly minted teachers making just as little. Now at the age of 37, I have no doubt that the struggle was worth it.

If you get into this gig at a fairly young age with no kids. It can easily be done. Add a family, mortgage etc... It'll be a difficult road, and you'll need the right women to put up with it all.. I got lucky in the fact I got started young, and started a family a few years later.

The generation before me couldn't get hired with less than 3000 hrs in the early nineties.

 

You disagree that to be an officer, you need a degree? Maybe the Army is different than the Navy, but I didn't think that was up for debate.

If your argument is that an enlisted guy with 15 years experience is a better warfighter than a "cherry ass LT," I don't think you'll find much argument, probably even from those LTs. But that's not what we're talking about. Like it or not, the military has Officers and Enlisted... Short of only commissioning prior enlisted personnel, experience alone isn't going to cut it when evaluating potential 2lts and ensigns.

The airlines hire based solely on experience though...

 

The requirement to have a degree was never up for debate. It's benefit is. A degree in music or whatever will do nothing for your ability to either command troops or fly a Boeing. Experience in your field will.


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Then your argument is against having a two-tiered personnel system. I'm not going to get into that argument... I meddle not in the affairs of dragons, because I am crunchy and taste good with ketchup

I'm saying that if Uncle Sam is going to hire people straight into a commission, a college degree is a decent differentiator.

** for an airline gig, I don't think it is, because your resume demonstrates experience

 

I don't think the debate was about the military, it was about main lines requirement to have a degree. The military and its newly minted officers was simply an illustration of an unrelated degrees uselessness when it comes to a skill based occupation.


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