"I'm not interested in the airlines"

USMCmech said:
One of the biggest problems I have with the airlines is that you have absolutely no control over your career over the long term. The recent AA bankruptcy is just another indicator that as a pilot you are just along for the ride. Even many of you who said you love the airline life attributed it to being lucky.
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There are plenty of pilots in other segments who get the same problems too. The owner sells the plane. A new board comes in and wipes out the flight department. Ask the guys caught up in that Jet Aviation fiasco a few years ago, or over at NetJets. Any segment, any time. Just like any other job.

One thing I've noticed from the responses so far is that may of us who have families are the ones who see the havock that the airline pilot lifestyle can have on our family. Many of us who have kids view QOL through a different filter than those of you that do not. The fact that Doug and Kristi can no rev to Germany for Octoberfest is cool, but I can never use that per because I have a family of five and three of us are in school. But I rarely miss any birthdays, holidays, or other family events. Those have a value that is tough to quantify.
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I take serious issue with this. I've got 2 kids. 6 and 3.5. This is their "normal". Dad is gone for 2 weeks, he's home for 2 weeks. Sometimes I bid short times off so I can have what amount to times off that most people can't comprehend.

It's all in how you put it together. Do I miss "important" days to according to people that sleep in their beds every night? Sure. Those are really the only breaks M-F 8-5ers have. I get home and make quality time. Kids Birthdays? How many are really held on their Birthday? Once every 7 years or so? Usually a weekend before or after. I do the same, it might be a week or 2 after, but the same effect. If you're home for every "important" day, and you get called out to a trip because the boss says so, far bigger crises than if you appreciate your time at home.

If the parents don't cry and whine about not being home on a specific day, the kids don't care. Are there times the kids want you home and you're not? Sure. In the same way there are many times I'd rather be home than in a hotel. It's par for the job.

Then again, when I'm home, the wife and kids come first. It's all how you handle it. At least we're not in the Marine services where time gone is measured in months for your entire career.
 
Alchemy, I agree, it was a bit different 10 years ago when compared to when I started. I began my career prior to 9/11, and I can only remember one pilot I went to flight school with who said his goal was corporate instead of the airlines. Even the cargo carriers were viewed as being a step beneath the passenger carriers, even though their pay was on par until the UAL and DAL contracts in '00 and '01. After 9/11, I think a lot of people changed their minds and looked elsewhere.
 
Polar, I would say even the typical 9-5er doesn't get those opportunities nowadays like they used to. I think I read somewhere that the average mid-level exec is now working over 60 hours per week. They expect you to be on your Blackberry and doing conference calls even during the weekends and vacations. Etc. The idea of a pure 9-5 job is a relic of the '50s.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Polar, I would say even the typical 9-5er doesn't get those opportunities nowadays like they used to. I think I read somewhere that the average mid-level exec is now working over 60 hours per week. They expect you to be on your Blackberry and doing conference calls even during the weekends and vacations. Etc. The idea of a pure 9-5 job is a relic of the '50s.
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Truth. I've had attorneys say, "Who cares that I'm home every night and I'm there for birthdays, it's only for 8 hours so I can sleep. I work so much I never see my kids."

If you want to make ched in this country, you're going to make sacrifices somewhere. It's either going to be stretches of time away from home on the road (what we do), or working 60-80 hours a week until you die of a heart attack at 45.
 
jtrain609 said:
If you want to make ched in this country, you're going to make sacrifices somewhere. It's either going to be stretches of time away from home on the road (what we do), or working 60-80 hours a week until you die of a heart attack at 45.
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What was it Steve Buscemi said in the movie Con Air, when Nicholas Cage called him insane?

"What if I told you insane was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years at the end of which they tell you to piss off; ending up in some retirement village hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time? Wouldn't you consider that to be insane? "
 
I should also note that I was one of the guys that, between about 2004 and 2007, was screaming that RJ's sucked, and that freight was awesome, and who wants to go work for peanuts at a regional, ima get my time in at Amflight and go to Southwest in a few years.

Guess what? I was wrong, and things didn't turn out like I thought they would. Couldn't be happier that they didn't. When I wen tto Amflight, I had no intention of leaving until I could get a job at a mainline company, but it simply wasn't in the cards.
 
As the self-proclaimed "old man" of the thread, I will say that career satisfaction comes from within.

There is no shining "Shangri-La" in any profession.

The pissed-off, been-there-too-long guy in the left seat of the CRJ will be the pissed-off, mad because he's not getting weekends off and the girlfriend is mad, new hire in the right seat of a 767.

True story.

I had to ask him "For real? You're stressed because your girlfriend is mad at you for 'having' to fly an ER to FCO for a 48-hour layover and you've only been with the company for six weeks?"

Don't stroke out by 40, people.
 
jtrain609 said:
I should also note that I was one of the guys that, between about 2004 and 2007, was screaming that RJ's sucked, and that freight was awesome, and who wants to go work for peanuts at a regional, ima get my time in at Amflight and go to Southwest in a few years.

Guess what? I was wrong, and things didn't turn out like I thought they would. Couldn't be happier that they didn't. When I wen tto Amflight, I had no intention of leaving until I could get a job at a mainline company, but it simply wasn't in the cards.
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I'm sure that freight is a great experience. However, the people I know who are doing it are sorta vagabonds. They move from company to company, base to base, and never really stay at the same job for very long.

That is most definitely not for me. And I've moved from place to place every 1-6 years of my life since the day I was born.
 
Every time I get annoyed at the 18 day trips, I realize that I'm often off work for 2-3 weeks straight. Friends have begun to ask me on this block of days off (which has me off work from 1/24 to 2/14) if I'm even employed. Yet, the paychecks keep showing up.

Not too bad with some getting used to. :)
 
dasleben said:
Every time I get annoyed at the 18 day trips, I realize that I'm often off work for 2-3 weeks straight. Friends have begun to ask me on this block of days off (which has me off work from 1/24 to 2/14) if I'm even employed. Yet, the paychecks keep showing up.

Not too bad with some getting used to. :)
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I prefer big blocks of time off. Longer blocks at work mean less worrying about commuting, less 'repacking', fewer goodbyes and well, lots and lots of snack mix.
 
jtrain609 said:
I should also note that I was one of the guys that, between about 2004 and 2007, was screaming that RJ's sucked, and that freight was awesome, and who wants to go work for peanuts at a regional, ima get my time in at Amflight and go to Southwest in a few years.

Guess what? I was wrong, and things didn't turn out like I thought they would. Couldn't be happier that they didn't. When I wen tto Amflight, I had no intention of leaving until I could get a job at a mainline company, but it simply wasn't in the cards.
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You were wrong because you are a hack.

And furthermore, a hack that couldn't hack the hacking required to hack the job that 135 cargo necessitates.

Hack.

:)
 
Doug Taylor said:
I prefer big blocks of time off. Longer blocks at work mean less worrying about commuting, less 'repacking', fewer goodbyes and well, lots and lots of snack mix.
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How long can your stints at work be? A couple of your 75 guys on the five towns van were asking me about our new contract, I was surprised when they responded "so?" after I tempered my satisfaction with our pay rate hikes by saying we still had a lot of 17 day trips. I figured it was mostly two-leg 3-4 day pairings to europe and back for you guys! I guess somebody has to do those AMS-BOM flights though :). At brand-x, trips greater than 4 days were prohibited for lineholders iirc, granted that was all domestic short range.
 
You know I find it interesting that you say this in the OP. I think the same way many times, but most of the other 121 Regional pilots I talk to don't want to fly corporate freight.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Polar, I would say even the typical 9-5er doesn't get those opportunities nowadays like they used to. I think I read somewhere that the average mid-level exec is now working over 60 hours per week. They expect you to be on your Blackberry and doing conference calls even during the weekends and vacations. Etc. The idea of a pure 9-5 job is a relic of the '50s.
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Everything you said is true, I've seen it myself at several different engineering jobs. I always get a kick out of the guy that's been a pilot his entire professional life, and thinks everybody else is making over six figures with a cake 9-5 job and ultra job stability. Talk about out of touch...
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Polar, I would say even the typical 9-5er doesn't get those opportunities nowadays like they used to. I think I read somewhere that the average mid-level exec is now working over 60 hours per week. They expect you to be on your Blackberry and doing conference calls even during the weekends and vacations. Etc. The idea of a pure 9-5 job is a relic of the '50s.
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Your not kidding either. I see it everyday. People working saturdays and sundays replying to emails from home or taking the work with them to do on the weekends. I couldn't ever, ever do that. It is rediculous to me. Maybe some people just don't mind or are better cut out to do that than I. I still think its retarded.
 
Threads like these makes it worthwhile for all the lurking I do around here. A ton of great information from seasoned, professional pilots... I definitely have "reevaluated" my career goals and path I take in life from posts on here.
 
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