career in a regional??

[Tired]

It is perfectly possible to make 32k and raise a child. Lets say that you make 32k in Phoenix and have a newborn. Well, you won't be paying any income tax, so your take home will be about 32000*93% to account for medicare and social security. So you bank $2480/mo. One bedroom apartment in Apache Junction or El Mirage...$500/mo. Utilites...no cable, no high-speed internet, easy with the air in summer time...$150/mo (real high). Car insurance, life insurance, renters insurance...200/mo. Car payment...should be buying cars for cash, but ok, four year old ford focus with 60k milesl....$5000. Payment, figure 6% for 36 months, $221/mo. WIth a stay at home mom you can get by with only one car. Figure you can get by on $400/mo of food. That leaves $1000/mo to cover the rest...

So you make 32k with a kid...you can get by if.
1. You rent a one or two bedroom apartment in a safe, but lower value part of town. (not N. Scottsdale)
2. You only have one car, and you bought a three year old american car. (no typical pilot cars)
3. You use cotton diapers, not disposable.
4. You buy the kids clothes at a 2nd hand store...new borns don't care about fashion and grow quick.
5. You don't go on extensive vacations...
6. You don' go out to eat that much.
7. When you do go out it's to the dollar theater and Chillis.
8. Your kid will go to a state school and will have a job and/or student loans.
9. Plan on shopping alot a Big Lots and Walmart.


How about retirement...well if you are 25 years old and save $150 a month in a Roth IRA, invest in an index fund at an average of 11% a year going back to 1929, you should retire with 1.3mil at 65 . Sure won't be the best (1.3 mil in 40 years, think inflation)...but you will make out.

 

[Mr_Creepy]

Doug please. I never said median is "OK" - Obviously it isn't! Who wants to be mediocre? Best of the Worst, Worst of the Best, or Cream of the Crap.

All I'm saying is that a commuter pilot (jet captain) is making higher than median wage in the country.

That's all.

 

[FL270]

One's standard of living is largely about the choices we make. Your income is a given ... sure, you might get an annual raise, etc (or be begged by Gerry for concessions as the case may be) but it won't change all that much assuming you remain in the same job. What you can adapt is your outflows. For me, since I'll be adapting to regional FO pay instead of corporate pilot pay, it means I'll be living in a smaller home. I'll be giving up the ninety-zillion channels of cable TV. I'll be keeping the six-year-old Saturn for another couple years instead of buying a new 4Runner. Mom will be helping with my student loans. Vacation this year will mean non-revving to my grandfather's for a few days instead of skiing in Utah. When I go to the ballgame, it'll be the bleachers instead of the lower deck. And I'll be eating more hamburgers and fewer steaks.

The trick is to decide what your priorities are and adapt appropriately. In my case, one of my priorities is to pay off my youthful extravagance. I racked up a bunch of debt to attend Embry-Riddle (and filled a few credit cards with the good times I had there) and now my "mad money" goes to paying that stuff off instead of going on a big vacation or saving more for retirement. For the next guy, a priority might be having and supporting kids. For yet another guy, maybe he'd rather have the bigger house and the nicer car, or travel to Europe on vacation. I'd like to do all those things, but I've had to adapt. As my income goes up, I'll be able to do more things, but for now I just get by. And so it goes ...

 

[derg]

Ok, time friggen out people.

Re read what I actually said compared to what you think I said.

 

[Hootie]

32g is hardly "ghetto". Especially if you stay away from the credit cards.

 

[EatSleepFly]

Ha. $32k is just about triple what I made during my first twelve months as a full-time CFI.

Granted, I'm sure its not a lot to someone with a mortgage, two cars, student loans, and a kid or three....but $32k sounds pretty nice to me right about now.

 

[B767Driver]

[ QUOTE ]
Why a career in a regional airline until retirement is viewed as a dead end job? As a captain you get relatively good pay and benefits aren't that bad, right?

Seems pilots look at regionals the way CFIIs look at instructing...

[/ QUOTE ]


To pilots it's all about size. When you are a young pilot with no experience, an RJ looks pretty nice compared to a C172. If you spend 38 years in a 70 seat RJ...it could get pretty depressing taxiing out in front of a B767-400ER.

Also, IMO, the airline piloting profession is being restructured pertaining to pay and benefits. This restructuring is beginning with the majors. As early as the next contract or two at the regionals...I believe their pay and benefits will be cut as well.

 

[aloft]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm doing well, but I'm probably doing on par when you look at the numbers to my parents who both worked.

My father had three houses (rented out two), four motorcycles, several cars and property back in Alabama, and did that all on about a combined gross income (between mom and dad) of about $65K... And that was in the mid 1980's. And that's raising three kids and helping put one (me) through college. And we were a middle class family. Neither went to college and both were blue collar.

[/ QUOTE ]

The bar isn't set relative to your parents, though. It might be for you personally, but that doesn't hold sway in this discussion. Besides, your parents were upper middle class too...your average middle class family doesn't own 3 houses, four motorcycles, several cars and property in another state. And $65k/yr was WELL above average in the mid='80s. Now, the only caveat to this is the fact that your parents lived in California, with its highly distorted economy. Even so, had your parents consolidated their property into ONE house, TWO cars and maybe a SINGLE motorcycle, all of them would have been much nicer (assuming you didn't live like Sanford and Son, with "several cars" meaning "several junkers in the back yard being parted out").

And really, the fact that you can afford real estate in Scottsdale and still afford an X5 demonstrate above-average economic power. Couple that with the both of you having college educations and high-status occupations and you can't escape the throes of upper-middle-classdom. Ya just can't!

One interesting thing to note is that by the figures posted on socialclass.org, not a single airline captain anywhere could be considered "upper class" due to the $400k/yr earnings criterion. You wouldn't have to look far in airline management, however, to find someone making that kind of coin.

 

[derg]

A used X-5, which probably costed about what a new Honda Accord with a few extras costs, plus a LOT of money down.

Besides, none of the above is honestly anyone's business besides my own.

Not directed at you at all, Aloft, but just to the crowd in general; would everyone be happy if absolutely everyone in your peer group made the single-income median income so people that earn below that won't feel bad and people that earn above that would feel better? Besides the "median" income is heavily shifted downward because of unskilled labor, retail and Mickey D's.

I'll be glad to take anyone on a tour of my neighborhood where I grew up if I supposedly grew up upper middle class, but I bethcya 80% of you guys wouldn't have the fortitude to step out of the car and talk a walk after dark there.

 

[SteveC]

And on a lighter note, MD88Pilot said:
[ QUOTE ]
To pilots it's all about size....

[/ QUOTE ]
And all along I thought it was about higher and faster...

 

[MQAAord]

[ QUOTE ]
And on a lighter note, MD88Pilot said:
[ QUOTE ]
To pilots it's all about size....

[/ QUOTE ]
And all along I thought it was about higher and faster...

[/ QUOTE ]

Nah, it's size.

 

[FL270]

I believe it was the American Airlines corporate physician who was quoted years ago as saying, "The pilot's life is founded on three things: sex, seniority, and salary -- in that order." Always thought that made a lot of sense ...

And as to the current discussion about the lust for the majors and larger aircraft ... well, a larger airplane pays more money. It requires more seniority to hold it. And it travels to more exotic and far-flung locales, thereby increasing the possibility that the pilot might get a little action on the layover.

So there you have it ...

 

[THE_DUKE]

I had a furloughed pilot tell me he lost his wife, boat, and airplane when he was laid off and learned the biggest leason of his life. Why buy when you can rent.

He said after he got another job if he wanted to go out on the lake he would rent a boat. If he wanted to fly a GA aircraft he could rent that too, and if he wanted.... well you get the picture!

 

[SUSPilot]

[ QUOTE ]
the "median" income is heavily shifted downward because of unskilled labor, retail and Mickey D's.


[/ QUOTE ]

The mean income would be heavily shifted by the extreme low end and the extreme high end jobs, as it is a true average. for example take three people with salaries of $10,000 $100,000 $10,000,000 there mean average salary is $3,370,000. This was heavily skewed by the person making 10 million. It would work the same way if you have someone making way less than everyone else. A median is the middle figure in the salaries people have. That means half of all Americans make less than 32k and half of all Americans make more than 32k. A median is not skewed by the person making 100 million dollars just like it is not skewed by the person making $2,000. Both are just figures on one side of the middle number or the median.

 

[FL270]

[ QUOTE ]
I had a furloughed pilot tell me he lost his wife, boat, and airplane when he was laid off and learned the biggest leason of his life. Why buy when you can rent.

[/ QUOTE ]Which leads to another oft-quoted pilot's maxim, which is humorous, though certainly not politically correct ... "If it floats, flies, or f%$#s, RENT IT!"

Reminds me of a jumpseat I did to LGW in my Continental days ... the FE was an over-60 guy. He said to me, "Son, I've been married and divorced four times. Never again. Now, if I see a woman I think is attractive, I'll just walk up to her and say, 'I think you're very attractive. So I'm going to buy you a house and then get out of your life forever.' Pretty much the same thing that happened with my ex-wives except I cut out all the crap in the middle."

 

[mtsu_av8er]

Wow....I've gotta say, I think that $32,000 is pretty low. Not homeless-poor, but it is bad. I wouldn't quite call it ghetto, though.

In the household I grew up in, My father brought home $950 per month. We lived in San Francisco, right in the city. There was my Mother, my Father, my twin sisters and my older brother.

That was ghetto. We had an old Ford Country Squire station wagon.....it was rough!!!

I'm not sure why I said that. I know that I could make it on $32,000 with no problem, but I wouldn't want to. Too many sacrifices, and I believe in having some nice things in life!!!! Without them, it's not life, it's all work!!! Only one life, gotta make it fun!!!

 

[Grumpy01]

This link will show average salary per hour. What it will not show, is the sallary of the people who work at places like Wall Mart. Home Depot, Lowes etc.

Say what you wish,but, it is my belief that if you make anything between 25 & 35M per annum you are at the average.

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost

 

[stuckingfk]

[ QUOTE ]
Say what you wish,but, it is my belief that if you make anything between 25 & 35M per annum you are at the average.

[/ QUOTE ]

This isn't directed at anyone, but something I wanted to say. I am striving to become a professional pilot, along with other things, but I didn't spend all this money to be JUST AVERAGE. Pilots DESERVE better than average pay because it is a better than average profession.

I don't know one person who wants to be average. I certainly don't tend to hang out with those kinds of people because I try surround myself with different kinds of people who aren't average. I don't know what that makes me, but oh well.

I think Lloyd said it best, living on JUST AVERAGE pay wouldn't be any fun. I am entering this profession so maybe one day I can say, "My wife and I were in Germany over the weekend, what did you guys do?" Being a professional pilot allows you to travel and do things average people couldn't normally do. I want to be able to have fun, and end up at a point in my life where I don't have to live paycheck to paycheck.

 

[B767Driver]

Have you seen the advertisement...displayed in some industry trade magazines...where a construction worker, complete with hardhat...walks up the stairs of a BE1900 and by the time he reaches the top he has morphed into an airline pilot? I believe the ad states something to the affect "become an airline pilot in 6 months". This ad makes me ill.

I think airline management would like this to be the profile of their pilots in the future. Marginally educated, marginally trained...and marginally paid and compensated. I'm afraid that management is no longer willing to pay for the best, brightest and most experienced pilots in the industry.

I sure hope I am wrong...but my observation is that the industry places a higher premium on a lower paid, less experienced pilot than an ultra experienced pilot not willing to work for subpar wages. One has to look no farther than the proliferation of the "Regionals" to reasonably validate this theory. Why else would a mainline carrier continue to farm out work to the connection carriers when thousands of highly qualified pilots are furloughed and ready to work?

When there are pilots abound ready to work for pennies...and there are plenty of them...it is going to be difficult to defend the historically high standards of the airline piloting profession and to prevent its denigration.

 

[MikeD]

[ QUOTE ]
Have you seen the advertisement...displayed in some industry trade magazines...where a construction worker, complete with hardhat...walks up the stairs of a BE1900 and by the time he reaches the top he has morphed into an airline pilot? I believe the ad states something to the affect "become an airline pilot in 6 months". This ad makes me ill.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where do I sign up?

[ QUOTE ]

I think airline management would like this to be the profile of their pilots in the future. Marginally educated, marginally trained...and marginally paid and compensated. I'm afraid that management is no longer willing to pay for the best, brightest and most experienced pilots in the industry.

I sure hope I am wrong...but my observation is that the industry places a higher premium on a lower paid, less experienced pilot than an ultra experienced pilot not willing to work for subpar wages. One has to look no farther than the proliferation of the "Regionals" to reasonably validate this theory. Why else would a mainline carrier continue to farm out work to the connection carriers when thousands of highly qualified pilots are furloughed and ready to work?

When there are pilots abound ready to work for pennies...and there are plenty of them...it is going to be difficult to defend the historically high standards of the airline piloting profession and to prevent its denigration.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sadly, very true. The guys with the t-shirts that say "will work for food", unfortunately take a phrase that started as a joke, to heart.