Low time pilots, and low paying jobs

About 6 1/2 years ago, with 1000 TT, I was offered $45k to warm the right seat of a Lear 55 in a Part 91 operation. I jumped at it. I realized a year or so later that $45k was a tad on the low side. The way my boss treated me was in direct correlation to the pay.

Now that I'm flying for a guy that appreciates me, I'm right in line with industry average (I pretty much named my price), and my QOL has drastically improved.

In corporate aviation, you're treated like you're paid. If they don't appreciate you enough to pay you appropriately, they won't appreciate you enough to do anything else to make life enjoyable.
 
Bonanzaman said:
Whoa! Did your next job even pay that much? I'm sure if others made the same then went to regionals they took a huge paycut to fly those jets right?
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Nope! Flight Express wasn't bad. That was around 25k gross in the 7 months I was there. Ameriflight though, LOOOOOOOOOOL, 40k for a Metro. WILL be leaving when my contract is up, to say the least... Don't really care at this point about pay cuts as the money I've made so far is sitting in various places, growing. Well, shrinking most days... :) I'm seeing what COULD happen with a move to the regionals, so I'm looking in that direction at the moment.
 
TFaudree_ERAU said:
About 6 1/2 years ago, with 1000 TT, I was offered $45k to warm the right seat of a Lear 55 in a Part 91 operation. I jumped at it. I realized a year or so later that $45k was a tad on the low side. The way my boss treated me was in direct correlation to the pay.
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I was making roughly that to warm the LEFT seat of a bitchjet with ~5000TT. On the road 24 days/month (that's an AVERAGE). I look back on it and I'm STUNNED that I put up with it for as long as I did (not long). That said, it was right in the middle of the "no jobs nowhere" period and Daddy has to buy beer. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I win the "lowering the bar" jerk contest...but it all looks a little different when you start picturing yourself in line at the unemployment office. On balance, would I do it again? Yeah, I guess I would. I'd knocked on every door I could find, and no one was hiring a guy with 5000 hours and a commercial ticket. So I got in, got typed, had some hilarious fun with my fellow mutinous aviators plotting our ultimate revenge, and got out.

One thing I'm fairly certain of is that it does little to no good to try to talk people out of taking crap jobs for crap pay. They've got reasons (usually bad ones, but reasons nonetheless). I will say that that job is where I had the epiphany that you're generally respected and treated as you respect and treat yourself.
 
chrisreedrules said:
Good pilots aren't cheap, and cheap pilots aren't good.
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Oh, you. You're on aviation job #1 aren't you? :)

I feel for @Boris Badenov... I took a bottomfeeder 757 gig in 2010 for many of the same reasons. Show me a pilot who's never taken a crappy, low-paying job, and I'll show you someone who's either lying or been exceedingly lucky. Sometimes the economy forces your hand.

(It should go without saying, but the one line that should never be crossed when times are tough is a picket line).
 
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dasleben said:
(It should go without saying, but the one line that should never be crossed when times are tough is a picket line).
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Since you mentioned this...

Corporate operators aren't typically unionized, and therefore can't picket.

That being said, what do we use in lieu of picketing/striking to bring our QOL and pay up?
 
dasleben said:
Oh, you. You're on aviation job #1 aren't you? :)

I feel for @Boris Badenov... I took a bottomfeeder 757 gig in 2010 for many of the same reasons. Show me a pilot who's never taken a crappy, low-paying job, and I'll show you someone who's either lying or been exceedingly lucky. Sometimes the economy forces your hand.

(It should go without saying, but the one line that should never be crossed when times are tough is a picket line).
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Never heard of it... But I stand by what I said.
 
Seggy said:
Weren't you posting looking for folks to get an airplane out of a difficult situation? If you paid well for it, why post on here looking for folks?
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I wanna know who put that airplane in that position

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
 
I don't see the correlation. None of the company pilots wanted to fly it out of the field and none of the local pilots did either. Hence my post here.
 
Seggy said:
Why didn't they?
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Because the job was a bit beyond the skill set most of our pilots that were available at the time possessed. There were some other variables as well and a fair amount of risk involved in the operation. I've done some off-airport ops but my personal experience is limited and that particular job was beyond the scope of what I would consider my reasonable safety zone. The company at the time was still wanting it flown out, so when they exhausted all other options they opted to look for a pilot outside the company/area that would be interested. There are some pilots on here that I filled in on the situation that may be willing to you in more but I won't post anything more about it publicly.
 
chrisreedrules said:
Because the job was a bit beyond the skill set most of our pilots that were available at the time possessed. There were some other variables as well and a fair amount of risk involved in the operation. I've done some off-airport ops but my personal experience is limited and that particular job was beyond the scope of what I would consider my reasonable safety zone. The company at the time was still wanting it flown out, so when they exhausted all other options they opted to look for a pilot outside the company/area that would be interested. There are some pilots on here that I filled in on the situation that may be willing to you in more but I won't post anything more about it publicly.
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Great.

Were they properly compensated for it then?
 
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