Happy Thanksgiving to my Junior Brothers and Sisters!

I’m sitting on a UPS jumpseat headed to work. It’s an A300 so there’s 4 jumpseats in their own little cabin behind the cockpit With the galley and lav. I feel like a rock star! What an amazing ride. If I were a decade younger… well, I wish I could tell 30 year old me to shoot for the freighters. This is an entirely different kind of flying. Altogether.

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There isn’t a day that goes by, that I don’t wish I’d chased a job at brown, or purple over where I ended up.
 
Fate is really weird. When I got hired at Brown in Feb of 1990 I thought it would be a stepping stone. A temporary placeholder until I got a real job. What sold me was the IPA (union, not the beer) and the rapid seniority advancement in the first couple years. Plus, I was basically lazy and finding another job was hard work.
 
I had that feeling, too. I finally acted on it and it's been the best decision of my life!

Thats awesome! I'm on the downhill slide of my career, with less than 10 years to go, so I wont be going anywhere, unless I don't have any other choice. But if I could go back and meet younger me, I'd say freight all the way, forget passenger flying!.
 
Thats awesome! I'm on the downhill slide of my career, with less than 10 years to go, so I wont be going anywhere, unless I don't have any other choice. But if I could go back and meet younger me, I'd say freight all the way, forget passenger flying!.
Granted, I'm a little younger and have just over 22 years to go, but I gave up almost a decade of seniority to make the move and have zero regrets. My training partner had 20+ years at a fractional and was in his early 50s. There was another guy who left a large carrier, also in his mid 50s in my class. All 3 of us are loving it.

Caveat to having said that, we have been told that hiring is slowing for a bit.
 
Granted, I'm a little younger and have just over 22 years to go, but I gave up almost a decade of seniority to make the move and have zero regrets. My training partner had 20+ years at a fractional and was in his early 50s. There was another guy who left a large carrier, also in his mid 50s in my class. All 3 of us are loving it.

Caveat to having said that, we have been told that hiring is slowing for a bit.

How much night flying is there? I’ve considered it but honestly can’t do any overnight flying regularly. Done it, won’t do it unless forced.
 
It all depends on the person, as I’m sure you know. Various people have various reasons. If I weren’t in an rv, I would’ve been pushing to get out still, but I stopped trying in March ‘21. Now that we’re starting to look at settling again, my goal of retiring in 10 years, at 60, make it futile to go other places. Especially considering upgrade times and the back side of this wave.

There are lots of us who decide on what our circumstances are. You wanted me to upgrade on the Triple. I could have a while ago, but I’d have been miserable, in our operation.
 
How much night flying is there? I’ve considered it but honestly can’t do any overnight flying regularly. Done it, won’t do it unless forced.
Honestly, on the MD, I really haven't done all that much. In the 9 months I've been active on the line, I've maybe AM hub turned about 5 times. I've had maybe 15-20 AM launches to a long layover. I've done 2 international trips that weren't bad at all (save for Chinese prison). I've done a lot of PM stuff (afternoon launch, layover, return in the morning...done around noonish).

The international trips are great, since we seem to always be departing opposite the passenger carriers, so it's flying at normal times.

I had AM reserve last month. Didn't turn a wheel. I sat 2 airport standbys, which were awesome (since I didn't get launched). I came in late evening, got a sleep room, turned in for the night, woke up the next morning and went home...literally dozing for dollars. I'm on A Reserve again this month and I had one trip that was supposed to leave out Mon. morning at 3 am, but due to fog at the destination, we didn't launch until 6. I had come in the previous night around 9, gotten a sleep room and thought I was going to get about 4 to 5 hours sleep before the flight. Thanks to our wake up call program, I ended up getting a full night's sleep before my flight.

I was honestly worried about the night operations and so far, it hasn't been bad. Now, again, I'm on the MD. I've heard life is a bit different for someone very junior on the 757, but still doable.
 
It all depends on the person, as I’m sure you know. Various people have various reasons. If I weren’t in an rv, I would’ve been pushing to get out still, but I stopped trying in March ‘21. Now that we’re starting to look at settling again, my goal of retiring in 10 years, at 60, make it futile to go other places. Especially considering upgrade times and the back side of this wave.

There are lots of us who decide on what our circumstances are. You wanted me to upgrade on the Triple. I could have a while ago, but I’d have been miserable, in our operation.

F-k your feelings! :D Your misery doesn't matter to me. Only me being able to live out my life vicariously in my fave heavy!

Seriously though. Yeah, I get it.

I've always wanted to 121 pax ops, because growing up that's what the symbol of success was in 121. Cargo was looked down on. Now honestly I don't care. I look at friends of mine the likes of @phill1174 or @JaceTheAce at their shop enjoying their jobs and flying. Another friend of mine just got hired at AmeriJet flying the 75/76. He too is having the time of his young life.

My only real interest is to be able to join the fraternity, and do the job that I've always wanted. Whether it be cargo, or pax.
 
F-k your feelings! :D Your misery doesn't matter to me. Only me being able to live out my life vicariously in my fave heavy!

Seriously though. Yeah, I get it.

I've always wanted to 121 pax ops, because growing up that's what the symbol of success was in 121. Cargo was looked down on. Now honestly I don't care. I look at friends of mine the likes of @phill1174 or @JaceTheAce at their shop enjoying their jobs and flying. Another friend of mine just got hired at AmeriJet flying the 75/76. He too is having the time of his young life.

My only real interest is to be able to join the fraternity, and do the job that I've always wanted. Whether it be cargo, or pax.
And there's me. Giving up on upgrade at a ULCC to go cargo at an ACMI. Everybody has different needs and wants.
 
And there's me. Giving up on upgrade at a ULCC to go cargo at an ACMI. Everybody has different needs and wants.
I've seen some of the junior captain schedules over there, granted they were in DEN, but holy crap they looked rough. I wouldn't want to do that either.
 
I've seen some of the junior captain schedules over there, granted they were in DEN, but holy crap they looked rough. I wouldn't want to do that either.
Next month we have four day trips that don't pay four days worth because they're only three duty periods. They're rough.
 
Next month we have four day trips that don't pay four days worth because they're only three duty periods. They're rough.
Yeah, that's some crap right there. We would have a lot of "3 days" where you'd fly the redeye out, have a lost day, then do the early morning flight back to base. Easy enough work, but because it was only 2 duty periods they only paid 10 hours. If you could build a whole schedule out of doing those I'd probably be all over it, but it's just not worth anyone's time and they always end up in open time.
 
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