Can anyone direct me to a step by step process?

[MidLifeCrisis]

I appreciate the brutal honesty. I guess I was looking at all the stories of pilot shortages and assuming this was a go to industry for the foreseeable future. I now appears like it an industry in need of pilots because they want folks to go out of pocket a very large sum of money to train themselves and most people just don't have that kind of time/money.

I guess if I knew 10 years ago what I know now I might have made a different choice, but as it is I'd say you all have talked me out of it, and I appreciate the honesty.

Thank you all, be well.

 

[woodreau]

There is a pilot “shortage”, but the shortage is not at the career airlines where people are trying to get to in step 6 of the post above yours. There are many more people already in this career stuck at step 5 trying to get to step 6.

The pilot shortage that is widely talked about is getting enough new people in at step 4 to replace the ones moving on to step 5 and 6.

For just one data point, I did the career change leaving a 90k job. I completed step 1 over 10 years because I had considered flying as a hobby. When I decided on the career change I did step 2 in a year but it was only because I had acquired the 250 hours flying recreationally over the previous 10 years. I skipped step 3 because the requirement to be hired was only 250 hours back then.

Went down to $18k for the first year and for the next 9 years never broke 50k until I got to my step 6. I never got to step 5 I went from step 4 directly to step 6 because my number for upgrade at the regional never came. First year (10 years after leaving 90k job) at step 6 made $25k, then second year i made 70k, and third year (12 years after leaving 90k job) I finally exceeded what I used to make at the last career. I maybe could have made the step to step 6 maybe 1 or 2 years earlier, if I had started applying sooner, but there are lots of people trying to get to step 6.