ATP Supply and Demand - New study

ATN_Pilot said:
Trust me, get a good job in your "second choice" career, buy an airplane, fly for fun.
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Do you have a discourage checklist or something in the airlines ? You are the second profi pilot to state the same exact thing. :(
I've heard it before from a friend of mine who was a F/O at the time but later became a captain etc...Left me puzzled for a while, but I quickly recovered for the incoming pilot shortage ;)
 
xargos said:
Do you have a discourage checklist or something in the airlines ? You are the second profi pilot to state the same exact thing. :(
I've heard it before from a friend of mine who was a F/O at the time but later became a captain etc...Left me puzzled for a while, but I quickly recovered for the incoming pilot shortage ;)
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The more you're around aviation, the more Negative Nancies you will find. If it's what you want to do, don't get sucked into the negativity and enjoy life. There are thousands of happy pilots out there. Find what makes you happy and go for it.
 
Stone Cold said:
The more you're around aviation, the more Negative Nancies you will find. If it's what you want to do, don't get sucked into the negativity and enjoy life. There are thousands of happy pilots out there. Find what makes you happy and go for it.
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Pilots will find any reason to complain, if they made a $1 million a year and worked one day a month we'd still find something to bitch about. The challenge is staying positive and realizing that we are often fortunate to be able to do what we do.
 
xargos said:
Do you have a discourage checklist or something in the airlines ? You are the second profi pilot to state the same exact thing. :(
I've heard it before from a friend of mine who was a F/O at the time but later became a captain etc...Left me puzzled for a while, but I quickly recovered for the incoming pilot shortage ;)
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I'm on track to fly less than 200 hours and make 6 figures this year as a line pilot for my company. I can find all kinds of things to complain about(like not flying enough), but really.... neither of my parents had it anywhere this good and I'm in my 20's.
I rather like my job.
 
z987k said:
I'm on track to fly less than 200 hours and make 6 figures this year as a line pilot for my company. I can find all kinds of things to complain about(like not flying enough), but really.... neither of my parents had it anywhere this good and I'm in my 20's.
I rather like my job.
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This.
 
@Maximillian_Jenius - I get where you're coming from. You were still training when I joined this site, fresh out of a divorce, trying to figure out if ATP was the right place for me to go. Didn't happen.

From where I stand, I don't see why you couldn't do both; have a private practice and work as a pilot. One of the huge benefits of airline flying is knowing your schedule a month or so in advance, and having some degree of control in how much you fly. This definitely allows you to establish schedules with patients.

And, I don't know how feasible it is, but I could see you picking up work with other pilots; how many pilot-psychologists are there? How much good could you do counseling other pilots, who have a particularly unique set of issues to confront?

Or maybe that's not a good idea. The opportunistic part of me sees an under-served market, and potentially allows you to do both jobs, at varying levels of involvement.

With the week I had this week, yeah, I totally see the attraction of plunking down a chunk of borrowed change to finish out my ratings, even to haul ass down to ATP's RIC location or my local giant FBO and start grinding out hours to facilitate leaving this often cushy-yet-infuriating-job I do.

But here's the thing - and there's no getting around this. If I haven't learned anything else, I have learned to be honest with myself. And being honest with myself means that if I got into an airline gig, it would be fun for a while, but, as @jtrain609 very bluntly put it some years ago, eventually it's just a job. And I suspect - I don't know, but I suspect - that I'd eventually not enjoy it anymore. Which why hobby flying/part-time flying is still right for me, while I ply my trade and take the corporate money that allows me to live comfortably and pontificate on the internet at my leisure.

So - know thyself, right? If you want to do both, perhaps you can, and perhaps THAT is what could keep those feelings of regret out of the equation. @ATN_Pilot 's deeper advice - whether he intended it or not - is that pursuing your current track gives you OPTIONS. And OPTIONS, really, are what you want.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
There's a reason for that: it's not as great a job as some people want to pretend it is.
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It's also not near as bad a job as some others. Try digging ditches, construction, sewage work, or any other number of jobs out there that have high suck factor. Just because your schedule wasn't perfect, doesn't mean this job is hard.

Yes, it is a job. I'm not trying to blow smoke up people's asses, but you also need to give it an honest assessment. Yes, there are furloughs, places close shop, and bases close. That's life, even in other jobs.

I lived in 5 states in 9 years in the Navy. My wife was facing layoffs at her company at the beginning of the year. Go to Detroit and tell me that people can find jobs there without relocating. It's all about perspective.

What did you do before flying?

Once again, to each his/her own.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
There's a reason for that: it's not as great a job as some people want to pretend it is.
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From my understanding you took over your family business.

I can understand where you are coming from, but not many people have the ability to do that, especially with enough income to even go out and purchase an airplane and operate it.

If I had to guess, the reason you are so negative is because you really weren't passionate about it to begin with. There may have been some things that attracted you to it for various reasons but the way you talk reminds me how guys who've never had another meaningful job outside flying talk when they come to work, or guys who didn't really come up through the ranks and work their butts off to appreciate what they have now.

It really changes your perspective on things when you train, move across the country multiple times for low paying CFI gigs, move again for another crappy commuter gig, upgrade, downgrade, and finally make it to a major airline. The sense of accomplishment is amazing (IMO), and this isn't a dig, but simply can't be understood/appreciated by someone who wrote a check for his job.

I think you're a good resource on here for many topics, unionism, investment, money etc. but for someone who has lived such a charmed life I have to wonder why they are so bitter.

@Maximillian_Jenius needs to do some sleuth work here...:)
 
Stone Cold said:
It's also not near as bad a job as some others. Try digging ditches, construction, sewage work, or any other number of jobs out there that have high suck factor. Just because your schedule wasn't perfect, doesn't mean this job is hard.
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Is that really the standard that you're applying? Pilots like to pretend that their jobs are equivalent to doctors and lawyers, yet you're trotting out ditch diggers and sewage workers to say that aviation isn't so bad? I think that really says a lot right there.

Yes, it is a job. I'm not trying to blow smoke up people's asses
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I'm sorry, but I think you are. There are just so many good opportunities out there that don't involve the years of suckage and the massive amounts of debt that aviation does, that I just don't think you're being even handed about your assessment. Someone can go to nursing school and get a four year degree and become a registered nurse for less than the cost of college and flight training, and they can immediately leave school and go make RJ captain money just about anywhere in the country they want to live. That's just one example.

Pilots need to stop kidding themselves. This isn't 1975. The profession isn't what it once was.
 
wheelsup said:
If I had to guess, the reason you are so negative is because you really weren't passionate about it to begin with
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You've been wrong many times before. But you've never been so wrong as you are with that statement right there. Anyone who knows me well and knew me when I entered the profession can tell you that I wasn't just passionate about aviation, I was absolutely obsessed with it. But a job isn't a hobby. It's a way to make a living and provide a good quality of life. There are many, many better ways to do that, and you can still fly for fun.
 
You're seriously comparing being a nurse to a pilot? I would put nurse under ditch digging, on par with sewage work. When I last went to the emergency room, it was filled with old people crapping themselves or spreading crap all around the bathrooms. Nurses were in there helping them. Nurses in my area start at $22/hr. Some places pay more, a lot more, but they are the equivalent of major airline jobs for nurses.
 
RNs aren't cleaning up crap. Do your research. I've got a few friends who are nurses making six figures, and they never touch bodily fluids. They mostly do paperwork, monitor machines, do routine medical procedures such as taking blood, and oversee the CNAs who do the dirty work. And again, this is just one example. There are many good jobs paying good salaries that don't require you to work for $20k to start after accumulating $80k+ in debt.
 
wheelsup said:
You're seriously comparing being a nurse to a pilot? I would put nurse under ditch digging, on par with sewage work. When I last went to the emergency room, it was filled with old people crapping themselves or spreading crap all around the bathrooms. Nurses were in there helping them. Nurses in my area start at $22/hr. Some places pay more, a lot more, but they are the equivalent of major airline jobs for nurses.
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Psych nursing pays far more than being a medical nurse. A nurse at my job starts at about $67k, with only a two year degree, and goes up to about $85k. The nurse I worked with tonight is making $57 an hour. My friend is a medivac nurse and started at $95k. He only has his associates. Also nurses only typically work three days a week for twelve hour shifts. With four days off, so a lot of nurses have a second job. My night nurse made about $185k this year, working two jobs, she only has a BS.

A nurse practitioner, who holds a Masters or a Doctorate can make about $200k, and the highest paying nursing job is an anesthesiologist nurse. They can make about $150-200k, they have a Masters degree though.

You're right though, nurse pay differs greatly by region, with the Midwest and the south typically paying the lowest. Nurse on the left coast, more especially in states like California, pay the best.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
RNs aren't cleaning up crap. Do your research. I've got a few friends who are nurses making six figures, and they never touch bodily fluids. They mostly do paperwork, monitor machines, do routine medical procedures such as taking blood, and oversee the CNAs who do the dirty work. And again, this is just one example. There are many good jobs paying good salaries that don't require you to work for $20k to start after accumulating $80k+ in debt.
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You get out of it what you put into it.

My neighbor is jealous of all my time off, but he didn't make the sacrifices I made early on in my career to get there.

Being the south, I was suspect of your $100k figure, and yep, nurses in GA don't make much more than ones in NC. <$27/hr starting wage there.

Like I said there are some nurses who do, but those jobs are not equivalent to commuter airline pilots.
 
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