Mid-life Career Change to Airline Pilot. It's Doable.

455 Bravo Uniform said:
With the subsidies, it’s definitely affordable (especially if your income drops).
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You're welcome. It would be a small (cold) comfort to know I was at least subsidizing someone else's flying since I can't quite afford my own.

Sincerely,
Fifty-Three Percenter
 
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455 Bravo Uniform said:
With the subsidies, it’s definitely affordable (especially if your income drops).
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www.forbes.com

ACA Premiums Are Set To Spike For Some In 2026—How To Lock In Savings Now

Millions of Americans could lose a tax credit that saves them thousands of dollars on ACA Marketplace health insurance by the end of the year. The tax credit, initially expanded under the American Rescue Plan during the pandemic and later extended through 2025 by the Inflation Reduction Act, saw
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com


Or, consider going into education. You get your salary cut in half, but you still get health insurance.
 
Congratulations!!! Pretty cool, enjoy your new career, thanks for the great writeup. Name of that bird? I was going to say a sPlatypus, bus Platypus's don't fly and aren't birds..... :dunno:.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Or, consider going into education. You get your salary cut in half, but you still get health insurance.
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If all you care about is health insurance and decide on this route to get it, para-educator is probably the lowest barrier to entry.
 
asicer said:
If all you care about is health insurance and decide on this route to get it, para-educator is probably the lowest barrier to entry.
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Our county school districts have limited the hours for paras to less than 30 per week so as to avoid having to provide benefits.
 
Larry in TN said:
I'm spoiled with the radar on the airplanes I'm flying now. I spent 15 years flying old DC8 and DC9s, some with green monochrome radar. The 145 is well ahead of that. The very small size of the radar display on the 145 surprised me.
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It's not the size but the fact it goes from black to red when you barely change the gain
 
Doc Holliday said:
But you stated “Delta has been on a hiring freeze (save FA's) this year.”.
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Did you see all those ZEROs? Did you look at the sources I provided?

The pilots in the Delta pipeline for the START of 2025 would have had conditional job letters in 2024. Delta has had stated that all needed slots for pilots (and MX) were full at the start of the year. Management has told us this in late 2024.

Delta is known for its long application/vetting process. Post covid hiring (aka like back in the mid 2010s) is a 4-6 month process. Could there have been the odd hire in 2025? Ok, Prove it. And I've you fine one, aw my lawd I was off by one.
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
For anyone repeating the byline “I can’t leave, change, or retire because of health insurance”, do yourself a favor and make an account, log on, and compare plans. It took me a while to absorb it all, but got me to eventually stop repeating the BS everyone else repeated. With the subsidies, it’s definitely affordable (especially if your income drops).
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Log on to what?
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
Healthcare.gov
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For some it's subsidized health insurance. When my private health insurance policy that I was told I could keep if I liked (I did like it) sent me notice they were not going to renew my policy (in spite of zero claims) I was forced onto healthcare.gov. The least expensive policy I found on it was a 500% increase in premium and provided less coverage on top of that premium.

Oh, and apologies to 6PC for contributing to the thread drift. It's just due to my distaste for what health insurance has become.
 
FORANE said:
For some it's subsidized health insurance. When my private health insurance policy that I was told I could keep if I liked (I did like it) sent me notice they were not going to renew my policy (in spite of zero claims) I was forced onto healthcare.gov. The least expensive policy I found on it was a 500% increase in premium and provided less coverage on top of that premium.

Oh, and apologies to 6PC for contributing to the thread drift. It's just due to my distaste for what health insurance has become.
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My COBRA from my employer after retirement was going to be $36k/yr for my family of 4. So for me, the policy on the gov site even before tax break was less than half as much.
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
My COBRA from my employer after retirement was going to be $36k/yr for my family of 4. So for me, the policy on the gov site even before tax break was less than half as much.
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COBRA generally is one of the most expensive options since you’re paying all the premium of your former employers plan and you’re paying an admin fee on top of that.
 
I left my last position and retired with a couple years to go before Medicare. COBRA was going to cost us $2200 per month. The equivalent marketplace plan (same coverage, similarly ludicrous deductibles) was nearly the same base cost, but subsidies got it under half that.
 
AV8R_87 said:
I'll say one thing, the airline should've given him a facial hair waiver.
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It's the worst part

Edit: it's the second worst part. The worst part is due to a crap ton of delays last night for storms we would be below minimum rest and so 3 hours into a wonderful night's sleep the hotel fire alarm is going off and I'm up right now and I don't want to be.

But I'd still choose this over sitting in a cubicle dealing with scrum Master and product owners and whatever else everyone's made up titles are
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
COBRA was cheaper than .gov for me. Just another data point.
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For a 2nd data point, to make ACA work to ones advantage one must be able to control their taxable income to manage the subsidy levels. And if the current relief on the upper sibsidy income limit is not renewed then it will become a hard drop off as it was pre-covid.
 
Bell206 said:
For a 2nd data point, to make ACA work to ones advantage one must be able to control their taxable income to manage the subsidy levels. And if the current relief on the upper sibsidy income limit is not renewed then it will become a hard drop off as it was pre-covid.
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Oh yeah ^^^this.
 
Bell206 said:
For a 2nd data point, to make ACA work to ones advantage one must be able to control their taxable income to manage the subsidy levels. And if the current relief on the upper sibsidy income limit is not renewed then it will become a hard drop off as it was pre-covid.
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They should give discounts for airplane owners. I make too much money but my after-plane income is negative. :cornut:
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
But I'd still choose this over sitting in a cubicle dealing with scrum Master and product owners and whatever else everyone's made up titles are
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I think you just triggered a little PTSD in me. :oops: God I don't miss that crap.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
But I'd still choose this over sitting in a cubicle dealing with scrum Master and product owners and whatever else everyone's made up titles are
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You land an airplane and people applaud with some wanting to shake your hand.

You re-image a drive and people grumble about you being able to recover only some of the documents off of the trashed file system. Or if you’re a developer, you undo years worth of ugly hacks but your boss only wants to know about your next milestone.
 
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