If you are like me, and you have always been attracted to the airline industry and being a pilot in the industry would be the ultimate job for you do not be discouraged. As others have said, the hiring in this business tends to run in cycles. In my case the hiring cycle was from 1963 to 1969.
I got hired by TWA in 1966 and started training January 27 1967 with a new commercial SEL and a little over 200 hours mostly in a Cessna 150. My initial equipment was the 707 where I moved from FE to FO in two years. I was in LAX which was real senior. A classmate of mine that started in Chicago went straight to FO on the Convair 880.
Pilots that were hired at the beginning of the cycle just a few years ahead of me moved to CAP in two years. The guys that started two years after me at the end of the cycle got furloughed in their first year and did not get back until 1978, 1979 or 10 years later. I cannot over emphasize how important it is to be qualified and ready to go when the hiring cycle begins. In my case I was an Air Force mechanic and could not get out until 1966. To our surprise a very high percentage of the people that had been furloughed for 10 years came back at their first opportunity.
I spent most of those years as an L-1011 FE while my classmate in Chicago flew 727 FO. My pay was about the same as his because I was on a heavier airplane.
Something that a lot of people do not seem to realize is that if you do not commute to work and you have pretty good seniority for the seat you are in you can bid a line that only works about three days a week. I had a video production business on the side that I worked about two days a week and earned about 36,000 a year. So I added that to the $65 per hour or 65,000 a year from TWA and made a total of about 100,000 a year. In my earlier years I played guitar in a cover band on my days off, but that was more for fun than money.
I hated commuting and only did it for two years out of my 35 year career when I thought I absolutely had to. When I tried flying international out of JFK I sold my car in LA and rented a crash pad in Kew Gardens with three flight attendants and rode the Q-10 bus to work. That lasted for three months and I found out the all nighters across the pond were not for me. I bid back to LA because I loved living there.
In the first half of my career I thought the ultimate was to fly the wide bodies out of LA but when the MD-80 came out and they were building up the St. Louis hub I decided that it would be a lot more fun to fly a two-man two engine narrowbody on short legs. In hindsight I should have moved to St. Louis a lot earlier and never commuted from LA.
I lived about 25 minutes from the airport and started flying the MD-80 and later all the models of the DC-9. This gave me tremendous flexibility as far as my choice of flight pairings. If I wanted to max out on flying the airplane I bid six leg per day turns. If I wanted to relax and have good days off I would bid Cancun, Sacramento or San Juan turns and have about 21 days off for the month. I had a St. Louis captain bid in for about five years before they got to our seniority. I had about 22 years when I checked out as a captain, but I did it as early as I could.
In the first half of my career I was single, liked living out of a suitcase, loved going out with the crew on a layover. In the second half I liked being home every night.
I really enjoyed the last three or four years because there was a big influx of mostly young pilots from Trans States which was our regional partner in STL. I hope I got the name right. I think most of them only put in a couple years with Trans States and were flying captain when they got hired by TWA. They were really a great bunch and a lot of fun to fly with. Of course when American bought us they got furloughed but I think a lot of them got hired by JetBlue. They probably have about eight years over there by now and if the pay scales that I saw on another thread are correct they should be doing pretty well.
Our guys were scheduled to put on American uniforms one month after I turned 60 and if I would have been a little younger I would have continued to do the same flying for about 45K more per year I believe. I was making about 135,000 when I retired.
Our retirement was a defined benefit plan until about 1985 when Carl Icon took over. They set up a window for guys that were between about 55 and 60. The guys that were on the 1011 and about 55 got something like 6500 per month for the rest of their lives and a 747 guy got something like 10,000. For us younger guys they converted the old plan to a 401(k) that was a defined contribution plan and the company contributed first 10% and toward the end 14% of our gross pay. Mine was made up entirely of company contributions and amounted to about 1.2 million at retirement. The A plan portion was taken over by the PBGC and pays a defined benefit of about 2400. per month for the rest of your life.
The standard way to figure your time for pay purposes is from block out to block in schedule or actual whichever is greater. There is also usually a minimum of hours per day. There is a duty rig formula which I believe was about one for every two hours from report to 15 minutes after the final block in for the day. There is also a trip rig that gives you a minimum number of hours for the total hours you are away from your domicile.
If your actual block time gives you the most hours then it is called a hard time trip. A turnaround like St. Louis, Sacramento, St. Louis would give you about eight hard hours in nine hours away from domicile and real good time off. If you like to go to Las Vegas and lie around the pool for a couple of days and get paid for it, find a trip that flies over a holiday with a real long layover and get paid with trip credit.
I retired in December of 2001 so I am giving all this information from memory. Feel free to correct me if you find any errors.
I feel pretty fortunate because I really enjoyed the job from start to finish, and now I really enjoy the retirement.
