Originally Posted by Smooth at FL450

Dealing with the riffraff is the most challenging part of the job...as one of my 8 year old corporate passengers astutely put it during our HNL-SNA flight “you have to breath their air”

Originally Posted by Smooth at FL450

Dealing with the riffraff is the most challenging part of the job...as one of my 8 year old corporate passengers astutely put it during our HNL-SNA flight “you have to breath their air”

Originally Posted by ZapBrannigan

There are a lot of things that I miss about corporate flying to be honest. I admit that I miss the benefits of a crew car (although Uber and Zipcar fill the gap). I miss nice clean FBO restrooms. I miss the more civilized pace of corporate flying vs the 35 minute turns. I miss the aircraft with state of the art avionics and systems, and the performance to easily cruise in the mid 40s without breaking a sweat. I miss the free sourdough from Signature in SFO, the taffy in Grand Junction, the Pretzels in NE Philly.

But none of the benefits of corporate flying outweigh the flexibility of the schedule we enjoy at SW. Since I left corporate flying a little over 5 years ago, I haven’t missed a single important family event, and I’ve only missed about 2 Christmases and one Thanksgiving. That’s hard to beat.

Add to that the B-fund and profit sharing being a qualified plan, and it’s hard to believe I wasted as much time flying corporate as I did. I’ll blame it on the lost decade.


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Originally Posted by Tbpilot06

I’m looking at the way you all view corporate pilots on this Southwest forum and I have discovered that one wouldn’t really be welcome even if we were interested. I am a corporate pilot and have never missed a major family event, any Christmas or Thanksgiving. I obviously don’t think poorly of airline flying since I’m interested in joining the ranks if I can get interviewed, but some of the viewpoints here are plain incorrect. I guess it depends on the company someone works for, but if we need a day off we ask and get approved even if we need a contact pilot to fill in. We don’t fly 8 year olds or anyone not conducting business for our company for that matter. Our passengers even clean up after the flight. It’s wrong to think anyone group is better than the other as each job requires different skills and interactions with people. I apologize for being interested in Southwest based on the responses from many here. I will go back to “wasting my time” at my corporate job.

Originally Posted by Tbpilot06

I’m looking at the way you all view corporate pilots on this Southwest forum and I have discovered that one wouldn’t really be welcome even if we were interested. I am a corporate pilot and have never missed a major family event, any Christmas or Thanksgiving. I obviously don’t think poorly of airline flying since I’m interested in joining the ranks if I can get interviewed, but some of the viewpoints here are plain incorrect. I guess it depends on the company someone works for, but if we need a day off we ask and get approved even if we need a contact pilot to fill in. We don’t fly 8 year olds or anyone not conducting business for our company for that matter. Our passengers even clean up after the flight. It’s wrong to think anyone group is better than the other as each job requires different skills and interactions with people. I apologize for being interested in Southwest based on the responses from many here. I will go back to “wasting my time” at my corporate job.

Originally Posted by RJSAviator76

That's your handicap right there.

Corporate guys generally don't want to be airline pilots. Just ask them. They'll just use us for a type rating and use the first opportunity to leave us for another better corporate gig.

Corporate pilots make horrible airline pilots. They can't handle not filing flight plans or loading bags or fetching coffee, ice and paper. Furthermore, they tend to always want to be the big fish in a small pond, and make lousy FO's. Then the confusion ensues when they're actually expected to fly every other leg from takeoff to touchdown... as FO's!!!! I won't even go into strut-wiping...

Corporate pilots don't know how the airline pilot world works, so we prefer you get some time under your belt at some podunk regional first before applying at this level.

Corporate pilots tend to be anti-union. All airline pilots at this level are unionized.

Corporate pilots always whine about hotel points or AvTrip points. You can kiss your Marriott Rewards or Hilton Honors Platinum goodbye unless you're a commuter maybe...

Corporate pilots are used to FBO lounges everywhere. At Southwest, we can only get a day room if our delay or time between flights is over 4 hours, which means you'll be slumming it in the terminal quite a bit. That means no Fox News, no Signature popcorn, no good-looking FBO girls, no lazyboys unless in the pilot lounge at one of our domiciles, and even then they tend to be subpar (ATL notwithstanding).

Corporate pilots aren't used to dealing with TSA. You no longer get to park your car at the hangar. Not only that, but at Southwest, you pay for your parking unless you're DAL-based.

Talk to a corporate pilot and they'll always say that the worst part of their job is airlining to/from their airplane. You do that a lot over here. You'll deadhead all over the system and you'll be exposed to the riff-raff in the back the whole time. Why would you do that to yourself?

Corporate pilots are used to catering and in-flight culinary wonders. We don't have catering. We have provo, and our in-flight culinary wonders include pretzels and chips. We are officially de-nutted as of August 1.

Simply put... being an airline pilot is beneath you, so the question is.... why on earth would you want to come here?

Originally Posted by Tbpilot06

I’m looking at the way you all view corporate pilots on this Southwest forum and I have discovered that one wouldn’t really be welcome even if we were interested. I am a corporate pilot and have never missed a major family event, any Christmas or Thanksgiving. I obviously don’t think poorly of airline flying since I’m interested in joining the ranks if I can get interviewed, but some of the viewpoints here are plain incorrect. I guess it depends on the company someone works for, but if we need a day off we ask and get approved even if we need a contact pilot to fill in. We don’t fly 8 year olds or anyone not conducting business for our company for that matter. Our passengers even clean up after the flight. It’s wrong to think anyone group is better than the other as each job requires different skills and interactions with people. I apologize for being interested in Southwest based on the responses from many here. I will go back to “wasting my time” at my corporate job.

Originally Posted by Tbpilot06

I’m looking at the way you all view corporate pilots on this Southwest forum and I have discovered that one wouldn’t really be welcome even if we were interested. I am a corporate pilot and have never missed a major family event, any Christmas or Thanksgiving. I obviously don’t think poorly of airline flying since I’m interested in joining the ranks if I can get interviewed, but some of the viewpoints here are plain incorrect. I guess it depends on the company someone works for, but if we need a day off we ask and get approved even if we need a contact pilot to fill in. We don’t fly 8 year olds or anyone not conducting business for our company for that matter. Our passengers even clean up after the flight. It’s wrong to think anyone group is better than the other as each job requires different skills and interactions with people. I apologize for being interested in Southwest based on the responses from many here. I will go back to “wasting my time” at my corporate job.