Brush with Ex TWA....

sorrygottarunway

sorrygottarunway

Well-Known Member
At the flight school today a guy came in to say hello...

turned out he was ex-TWA on the 767 and when it was bought out, lost his job. Seemed like a very depressing story. He was telling our DE (who is also ex TWA, but retired) how he now has to deliver oil to make ends meet, "he can't find a job anywhere to save his life..." and when he wanted to go corporate, they wanted him to spend 30k to get a type rating and come back for an interview. The sad reality is how he explained to me: this is how they get rid of 90% of the applicant pool. Pretty tough burn, if you ask me. I'm not sure what happened between AA and TWA but it sounds like a pretty depressing situation... I'm hoping this isn't really the reality (well, probably is!)- at the flight school there are tons of hopeful people, kids with big dreams, and stories like this just get you down, especially on an IFR day. Its tough to keep a 100% positive attitude, but I gotta remind everyone to stick to their goals no matter what!

Sorry for my rant, but a flight school is no place for a bad attitude or depressing stories, there are too many people trying to make things work, make things happen. We have a flight instructor who hates it because he can make more money doing other things, and so in his free moments he comes over to us to tell us how poor we'll all be in 30 years because all the airlines will be FLOP and rich guys will be paying us 12/hour to fly their jets. His big thing is "return on investment: why spend 40k to get ratings that will have you making 17/hour?"

All I can say is: FULL SPEED AHEAD, ONWARDS, UPWARDS, LEAVE THE NEGATIVITY ON THE GROUND!

Rant off.

Can you tell I just drank espresso?
 
I understand exactly what you're saying man. I also really appreciate your determination and positive attitude. Unfortunately, some of what you're hearing is simply the truth for many pilots. This profession is not always all it's cracked up to be. Some of us are fortunate enough to be where we want to be and doing what we want. There are tons of pilots who are not. Some are meant to do the job, others aren't. Even some of the one's that are meant to do the job are unhappy and discontent.

So, that said, I wish people would've been a little more honest with me about this career choice. It's certainly not all it's cracked up to be in many ways. For me, it's been great and getting greater, but there's also been more crap and BS than I ever imagined.

Anyway, the whole point to my post is: Sometimes people are just being honest and just because you don't want to hear it, doesn't mean it's something you shouldn't heed or listen to. Between all of the TOOLS that will work for free or close to it and the idiots running half of these companies, it can be a very very hard climb to where you want to be. That's all. Just keep in mind, sometimes people aren't necessarily tying to get you down. Sometimes there just telling it like it is. Ok, rant over.
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Agree JonnyB. These "glossy Flying magazine-ad" flight academies love the people that want to stick their head in the sand and plop down their 50K for "the fastest way to the airline flightdeck".

Take ALL you hear about aviation and weigh it honestly. There's a lot of good information to be had in both positive and negative words.
 
That TWA guy was probably about the same senority as my husband. He was 767 JFK based. Had Bill not left TWA for Delta, he'd be in the same situation. A classmate of his who decided to stay, is now furloughed AA and drove around the country in an RV selling wedding dresses before he finally got a corporate gig. The housing market in STL is so stagnant they couldn't sell their house (they had to move to Houston for the corp job) and they actually had to let the bank forclose, they just couldn't sell it! At one point at Delta, Bill was 91 numbers away from furlough, not a comfortable place to be.

I myself am 9 days behind all the TWA FAs on the AA senority list, thanks to AA losing my background check info and putting me in class 4 weeks later than I should have been. We can't control everything that happens to us, but it's hard not to be bitter when handed a sh*tty card like that!

There's many situations like this right now, and they're unfortunante. We can only make our decisions based on the information we have available to us at the time, and whether or they turn out to be good decisions 5, 10, 30 years down the road we just don't know.
 
Keep something going besides "the dream" - as you can see mr. TWA found out that dreams can be nightmares as well.

Remember that there are other ways to enjoy aviation besides airline pilot!
 
Honestly speaking, the more information, the better. And as you grow older, a lot of your priorities change as well.

A long time ago, I thought that if I won the lottery, I'd just sit reserve and fly as little as possible. But now I'm morphed into the mode of thought that if I won the lottery, would I leave the aircraft on the taxiway or fly to the next station and buy a ticket home?
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You are correct, the TWA pilot should not be sharing his sorrows with the class. If he was to share his personal story with everybody after class, that is a different story.
 
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Honestly speaking, the more information, the better.

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No doubt!

I sooo wish I had found this website before I got any ratings. I wouldn't change too much, but still. For the most part, the only pilots I had encouraging me to persue my flying career were recreational pilots who knew little of flying professionally, and a couple of old-timers who apparently didn't want to crush my dreams with the truth. Personally, I don't think it would hurt some pilot-hopefuls and up-and-coming pilots to take a more serious look at some of the posts both on here and at flightinfo about the quality of life.
 
Well, the industry is in a cold war over a lot of things.

They're more or less trying to denigrate the profession into a flying short order chef and are having some great success so far.
 
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A flying short order chef


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I thought that's what FAs were!

Pax "What do you mean you're out of the beef?"

Me "That would mean there is no more"

Pax "Well, go find some more!"

Me "Suuuuure, coming right up"
 
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Keep something going besides "the dream" - as you can see mr. TWA found out that dreams can be nightmares as well.

Remember that there are other ways to enjoy aviation besides airline pilot!

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Sage advice my friend. I used to feel stuck in my boring telecom job, now I see it as a way to finance my true love: Flying. Life can be tough, it's always best to have a fall back position.
 
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Sorry for my rant, but a flight school is no place for a bad attitude or depressing stories

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A real life story has its place, but you are right. Not in the classroom.

The listeners just plunked down 30-100K for training, and they're now hear this guy tell them they did the wrong thing. Who invited this guy to the classroom.

If the guy wanted to rant on about this industry, this forum would actually be a good place. It's good to hear all perspectives here. Many people consult JC when trying to make a decision about an aviation career.
 
Where did this take place? Was this TWA guy just talking with people at a FBO-type flight school, or was he speaking to an entire classroom full of students at an academy type school?
 
No, it was just a bad combination of factors:

-bad IFR weather for one week, depressed flight instructors sitting and twiddling thumbs while earning zippo.

-New student at the FBO that day wanting to learn to fly, work there too

-CFI that hated his job ranting to everyone (dreampopper)

-Then cue the TWA guy to come in and tell everyone what a sucky profession it is.

It wasn't a formal ground school, but a quiet FBO on a rainy day with 2 of us hard workers behind the desk, 5 flight instructors with no students, 1 extra flight instructor that makes a career out of dream-popping.
 
Instead of raggin' on them, perhaps you should listen to what they have to say. I'm sure they didn't wake up that morning and say, "hey, lets ruin sorrygottarunway's day", but if people were just shooting the breeze around the FBO and the topic came up, take it as an opportunity to hear some of the realities of the industry. I'd say its better to hear it now and at least be somewhat prepared for whats to come, than find it all out the hard way later. My $.02.
 
What FBO was this at? I took my PPL checkride at OXC with the same DE who is retired TWA. He is an awesome guy.
 
What you said, ESF.
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It doesn't really matter how it makes you or anyone else feel. It's reality for quite a few pilots. It's life! How do you think the TWay guy feels?! Geezzz...
 
There's both good and bad in this profession and you've honestly got to look at both sides.

Instead of getting all bummed out, think about a "plan b".

For example, if my job crapped out, having a simple aeronautical science degree, I have NO "plan b" without either having to go back to school or sell drugs to kindergarteners! Primarily the reason why I think anyone that wants to get involved in aviation without a viable "plan b" is seriously a fool these days.

Why do you guys think it drives me crazy when a doubting Thomas pops up and says, "Nah, don't get a degree! Do it now! Do it fast! Don't worry! The fat hobbit is trixey!"
 
I belong to a nonprofit organization that has restored or is in the process of restoring 3 vintage airliners - being in KC, the volunteer pool (mechanics, pilots, tour guides, etc) is largely made of ex-TWA'ers. I accompanied the group to the airshow at SUS last fall, we took the Constellation over. The flight crew was made of two TWA 767 captains that successfully made the transition over to AA (and kept their jobs) and a retired TWA captain as flight engineer.

Anyways, obviously being in St Louis there were a lot of former TWA employees at the airshow. I was working as a volunteer towards the front of the plane, where the crew was stationed by the cockpit to answer flight-deck related questions. It was amazing to see all the TWA'ers come through and tell their stories to the guys who were still flying (for AA) - "Yeah, I was a captain on the 717, now I'm captain of the house..." "I'm working in construction right now until something better comes along." "I'm a mortgage lender."

It was a HUGE eye opener for me. HUGE. If there was 1, there were 15 former TWA pilots that came through that Constellation and are now doing non-aviation jobs. In fact, it made me give second thought to exactly where I wanted to go with this (hence my "at a crossroads..." post in the career changers section). It is still my dream, definitely. But so is financial and career stability. I struggle with where exactly I want to go with my career on a daily basis.

I think people need to pursue their dreams, but I also think they should be full aware of the potential pitfalls of whatever their chosen endeavor is.

Sarah
 
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