Sort of. I think you are hearing that people are happy with their career selection. But a few people, ok maybe one person, are not happy that other people did not select the career selection of airline pilot.
Sort of. I think you are hearing that people are happy with their career selection. But a few people, ok maybe one person, are not happy that other people did not select the career selection of airline pilot.
Actually, I think HoJets (aka GoJets) is the bottom of the bottom...but then I suppose they are Mesa.....
Your reasoning as to why there are fewer former military guys going into the airlines is exactly true -
Well I know of no post in this thread where anyone 'acted' like they get. I do know of at least one post where I stated my personal opinion of why I would not want that job for me and then I saw a dismissal of my opinion and someone wanting to tell me what I should think. I found that amusing, arrogant and closed minded, mostly because it presumed to understand my frame of reference. I happy that the airline pilots here like their jobs. I would not want their job at all. I think it stinks and is not something to aspire to. But that is for me. I am sure that many of them would hate what I do. I however do not call their opinion "inane". I recognize that we all make choices.
Ya know, curiosity got the best of me so I went to look it up. I'm not trying to get everyone to start slamming their dicks on the table or anything, just answering the question so anyone from the outside looking in can see what a "career progression" looks like pay wise from '99 til now. Am I typical? I don't know. I know pilots that have it a lot worse off and others that my salary will barely cover their tax burden. Ok, that's an exaggeration...
Starting in 1999 I was hired at a regional as a turboprop FO:
1999: hired early summer: $16k for the 8 months or so.
2000: started upgrade training late in the year but making min pay until training was completed in mid '01: $38k
2001: $58k as an RJ captain
2002: $63k doing the same thing
2003: $64k, again, doing the same thing
2004: $85k, doing the same thing but working the system better
2005: This year I switched to a major airline and took a huge pay hit late in the year: $60k as a 757/767 FO
2006: on probation most of the year, $50k (see above about the pay hit)
2007: off probation and played the system, $105k (so there's your answer, 8yrs)
2008: $115k
2009: $125k
2010: $121k
2011: Switched to the 777, $130k-ish and home more than my wife wants me here. Averaged about 8 days of work a month through the summer. It's great, though, since I have a new born at home and I can watch her grow up in front of my eyes instead of hearing about it on the phone.
'08-'11 I've been working less and less as the pay has increased, hence the lack of upward movement in pay those years.
My "forward progression" took quite a hit, as did nearly everyone's, because of 9/11 and the cutbacks the airlines did. It happened again in '08-now with the great recession. But as was said before, with the aging pilot group we have in the making for an actual need for pilots. If someone was a CA or an FO that was about to upgrade at a regional, places like AMR and USAirways will be looking good in the not-too distant future. They have a ton of older pilots that will be headed out the door starting in Dec 2012.
All that being said, I think I've been pretty lucky in my career as I have avoided furloughs (post '01 and also the 08-now) and managed to get on with a major at a "young" age (30ish). Not everyone that wants to make it to a major will succeed. Nature of the business.
What did you do prior to 1999 to get into a position to be hired as a FO?Ya know, curiosity got the best of me so I went to look it up. I'm not trying to get everyone to start slamming their dicks on the table or anything, just answering the question so anyone from the outside looking in can see what a "career progression" looks like pay wise from '99 til now. Am I typical? I don't know. I know pilots that have it a lot worse off and others that my salary will barely cover their tax burden. Ok, that's an exaggeration...
Starting in 1999 I was hired at a regional as a turboprop FO:
1999: hired early summer: $16k for the 8 months or so.
2000: started upgrade training late in the year but making min pay until training was completed in mid '01: $38k
2001: $58k as an RJ captain
2002: $63k doing the same thing
2003: $64k, again, doing the same thing
2004: $85k, doing the same thing but working the system better
2005: This year I switched to a major airline and took a huge pay hit late in the year: $60k as a 757/767 FO
2006: on probation most of the year, $50k (see above about the pay hit)
2007: off probation and played the system, $105k (so there's your answer, 8yrs)
2008: $115k
2009: $125k
2010: $121k
2011: Switched to the 777, $130k-ish and home more than my wife wants me here. Averaged about 8 days of work a month through the summer. It's great, though, since I have a new born at home and I can watch her grow up in front of my eyes instead of hearing about it on the phone.
'08-'11 I've been working less and less as the pay has increased, hence the lack of upward movement in pay those years.
My "forward progression" took quite a hit, as did nearly everyone's, because of 9/11 and the cutbacks the airlines did. It happened again in '08-now with the great recession. But as was said before, with the aging pilot group we have in the making for an actual need for pilots. If someone was a CA or an FO that was about to upgrade at a regional, places like AMR and USAirways will be looking good in the not-too distant future. They have a ton of older pilots that will be headed out the door starting in Dec 2012.
All that being said, I think I've been pretty lucky in my career as I have avoided furloughs (post '01 and also the 08-now) and managed to get on with a major at a "young" age (30ish). Not everyone that wants to make it to a major will succeed. Nature of the business.
Unless you could get a FO job back then without any training, education, or certificates then there is another piece of this that wasn't mentioned.TMetzinger said:
Or 3 years later... even one year later.
Exactly. No one can really predict the timing in the future either.
True, but those tended to be the bottom feeders as I recall. About 4-5 years ago, Mesa was hiring people with under 500TT and NO ME!....you got hired, went through their pilot school to get your ME rating and then started off in the right seat....but the catch was you had to work for peanuts and deal with Ornstein.
I only feel sorry for you because I get to point the airplane where I (or my wife) want to go.Twenty days off a month and when I do fly it's to all the places I used to read about in the National Geographic and dream of going to when I was a kid. My credit cards, cars, plane and HOUSE are all paid off and I still have seventeen years to go if I want. But if you must feel sorry for me - go ahead it's all right, I'll wave as I fly over
I only feel sorry for you because I get to point the airplane where I (or my wife) want to go.
For a slightly different perspective my neighbor is one of those pilots who soloed on his 16th, was flying for a major by the time he could (legally) buy beer and is currently close to or in the top ten seniority wise. In his own words if he had to start over today he'd probably choose a different career. That probably must not be definitely because his son has graduated from a 4 year college aviation program and is aiming for an airline job himself. But over the years (typically as a result of mergers) he's been knocked back to first officer or reserve captain multiple times, had his salary chopped by more than 25% and reported to management that he ought to be hanged and then shot. The latest hit on his workplace enjoyment came this summer when the airline announced that they were dropping all the wide body equipment at his base so he's going to have to commute to another hub or move for his last 7 years (assuming he goes to 65). At least twice in the last ten years he said he was seriously contemplating quitting the airlines and doing something else but that was probably just venting.
As for your friends tale of woe and misery - PLEASE keep them coming, they do much to discourage others from wanting to enter the vocation and in the interim make me and my services all the more valuable !
18k I can't even imagine. 40k is still just not enough. It would take a six figure salary for me to even consider a career change into the airline world. No airline is going to hand me a six figure salary - therefore I'm not about to become an airline pilot. Fine with me
Unlike Tim (I think it was Tim) who said that he only knew people with very good stories or very bad stories, I think I know more people with average success as airline pilots. I don't think it was quite the package they were sold but not that bad either. But then I do know a few pilots who worked their way up through the ranks, all the way to regional captain, got their dream job at a major, then got furloughed less than a year later after 9/11. I know them because they were hired by the company where I work and I ended up training some of them. Coming from a totally different background it was surprising to me at the time that people would be willing to go from a 737 to a King Air. This is also when I realized that if you have spent most of your time flying as part of a crew that it's hard to go back to single-pilot, and that the thing you have done most recently is the thing you are probably best at. What makes these stories worse is that most of these people took the recall a few years later after working their way up here, and were furloughed again. I can see that even if you loved aviation and flying that it would sour you on the industry. Completely. I also realized how lucky I was to have had stable employment through that period because I had reasonable timing too.
Hopefully you have enough put away that it will allow you to do that. People often ask if I want to buy an airplane. During my working life I always felt that I got my flying fix that way and couldn't justify the expense of a personal airplane even though I can probably afford at least a modest one. I should clarify that I have always worked in GA, 15 or so years of flying small piston GA airplanes (mostly mapping) and another 12 of flying turbine ones (air ambulance, charter and corporate) so exploring and going into a large variety of airports has always been a part of my flying life. If became unemployed or "retired" at this age I would need to watch my money much more closely and might not feel I could justify it then either.
How on earth did you arrive at that conclusion???
What does that have to do with airline pilots? They don't mandate or design the system, they work within it.
