Need Help On This Age Thing Again

B

badboy8787

New Member
Hello everyone, Im a newbie on this site, and I want to tell everyone that Its been extremely helpful to me. I have a question that I've been wanting to ask but didnt know where to turn before I found JC. I am 34 years old. I am strongly considering flight training at ATP probably sometime in Feb. Currently, I have Zero hours logged. I understand the requirements to be considered for the regionals. I just want to know, what are the chances of me getting hired by a major carrier ie (Jetblue etc) at my age. Is there a age the majors prefer? And how many hours do they usually look at to be considered? Im not saying regoinals are a bad thing. Ive been wanting to fly ever since I was a little kid. But dont ask me why i waited. its a long story. =) I just dont want to spend the rest of my flying career making $25,000 a year. I know these are dum questions, but I would like to be well informed before making a $50,000 investment. Thank you all!!
 
There was a gentleman in my new hire class who was 51 years old, if that helps to answer your question.

Of course he was retired military, former F-15 squadron wing commander, but ya know!

You're looking for a 'return on investment', there's nothing wrong with that.
 
badboy8787 said:
I just dont want to spend the rest of my flying career making $25,000 a year.
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I don't know where people get this idea from. First year pay at my place of employment is $22.99/hr. A good average is to take the hourly rate and multiply it by 1000 to get your salary that year.

So first year is $23k. Not great.
Second year is $34k. Livable.
Third year is $35k.
Fourth year is $36k, COULD be $59k if you upgrade (current upgrade time is coming down, somewhere in the 3-4 year range).

Keep in my, the pilots took concessions a year ago. With the ending of United flying, they (we I guess) should get the old contract back (it's currently in arbritration right now) and that put second year F/O pay in the CRJ-200 (our only plane now) @ $39/hr - so second year pay would be $39k give or take.

That's livable by me, especially having 14-17 days off a month...

I had a student do the ATP thing as well, he was about your age. He was flying for Expressjet with 502 TT, and got there within 14 months of STARTING flight training (his private). Good luck!

~wheelsup
 
Now I can't really tell you about the majors, but I have two very good friends who are 'older' but are still 'young' in their aviation career. One guy is 32 and this past March got hired on at Colgan air...straight from flight instructing. The other guy just turned 40 and has just over 1000 hours. He's been instructing at ATP the past few months (although he wasn't a career pilot student there) and he's going through their CRJ course as I type this...and then onto the regionals (hopefully!) They both have a very good connection at Southwest and once they get some experience I think they'll have a good chance of hopefully getting on with Southwest (but so much could happen between now and then, so it's hard to tell). I'm not full of information, but hopefully this helps a little bit! (Oh and for the record, the 40 year old friend left an $80,000-90,000/year job because of his love for flying and because he wasn't happy at the other job. You only live once, you might as well be doing what you enjoy.)
 
"I have Zero hours logged. I understand the requirements to be considered for the regionals. I just want to know, what are the chances of me getting hired by a major carrier ie (Jetblue etc) at my age"

How many years do you think it will take you to meet the average hiring quals of a major and do the networking it takes to get an interview? I'll guess that it's at least 10 years with no guarantees of that.

If you can't see spending your career at a regional, you may be dissapointed in this career field. At the same time, the better paying regionals top out at 100K, not 25K. Don't get into this game for the money, get into it because you LOVE flying. Also, don't let your love for flying get in the way of seeking the highest compensation possible over the course of your career. This is a difficult job, in many ways, and pilots should be respected and well compensated for managing a multi-million dollar asset.

To really answer your question, though, I don't think age is that much of a problem as long as you meet the qualifications.
 
badboy8787 said:
Hello everyone, I'm a newbie on this site, and I want to tell everyone that Its been extremely helpful to me. I have a question that I've been wanting to ask but didn't know where to turn before I found JC. I am 34 years old. I am strongly considering flight training at ATP probably sometime in Feb. Currently, I have Zero hours logged. I understand the requirements to be considered for the regionals. I just want to know, what are the chances of me getting hired by a major carrier ie (Jetblue etc) at my age. Is there a age the majors prefer? And how many hours do they usually look at to be considered? I'm not saying regional are a bad thing. Ive been wanting to fly ever since I was a little kid. But dint ask me why i waited. its a long story. =) I just dont want to spend the rest of my flying career making $25,000 a year. I know these are dum questions, but I would like to be well informed before making a $50,000 investment. Thank you all!!
Click to expand...





I think that the question here is not: "what are the chances of me getting hired by a major carrier ie (Jetblue etc) at my age?", but: " what are the chances of me getting hired by a major carrier ie (Jetblue etc) right after spending $50.000 with (insert school name), without having build enough hours (ie. instructing, low pay) to be considered for a turbine job (ie, Regional, low pay for a while, although as you build seniority, your salary will be higher than 25.000 a year) where I could then build enough hours to be considered for a job in a major".

IMHO opinion, if you considerer "investment" (not only economic, but personal) and a return of this "investment" as a main factor to choose this career, I would advice you to try to get your private first (to, among other things, see if you really like to fly before committing your self to such a big investment), and to look to other fields where a return of your "investment" is more secure.

So I will say that your chances of getting a high pay job, without having to go through a few years of low paying ones where you will learn the skills and judgment necessary (aka, paying your dues) to get a job with a major, are very slim.

I'm not trying to sound harsh, I'm just passing along what I've learned here from people who knows the industry.

Good luck to you
 
Definitely get your private before you get too far ahead of yourself with your plans. I'm continually amazed that people will throw down for a $50,000+ program without having the 1st hour flying a real plane. Until you do, you can't really know you are going to like it (or if you're any good at it).

MF
 
Minnesota_Flyer said:
Definitely get your private before you get too far ahead of yourself with your plans. I'm continually amazed that people will throw down for a $50,000+ program without having the 1st hour flying a real plane. Until you do, you can't really know you are going to like it (or if you're any good at it).

MF
Click to expand...

That's definitely good advice. I'm in the same boat. I'm 35 and want to make a career change. I'm certainly not getting into this for the money though. I'm doing it cause I have a love for flying. Right now I'm at 0 hours but I want to start off with getting my private certificate 1. because whether I make a career out of it or not I want to learn how to fly and 2. as was mentioned, to see if I'm any good at it before I spend $50K+.
 
I want to add something that seems to escape a lot of people. The airlines are not the end all that they used to be. Airline pilots are taking concessions left and right just so they can continue to work as Airline Pilots. More times than not when a Airline furloughs a pilot, it could take two to three years to get recalled. What are you to do during that time? Don't get into flying with blinders on. There are plenty of well paying and satisfying flying jobs to be had. Corporate flying is a good, but Fractionals are growing leaps and bounds. You may not make as much as a Airline pilot, but as I said airline pilots are taking cuts.

In short, there is nothing wrong with wanting to fly for an airline, just know that there are other types of flying that you can get into. If you know in your heart that nobody can change your mind about flying, go to one of the schools that get you all the ratings in 90 days or so. Don't waste time, if this is what you want then go directly for it.
 
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