The dark side of ramping
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Hey does anyone know if becoming a ramp agent is a viable route to a pilot job at X airline.
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I worked at AE as a station agent. Station agents did everything from ticketing, aircraft cleaning, on through ramping. The station, at that time, was so small even the general manager hauled luggage on occasion. The station manager also determines the overall treatment of the employees. Some are great, some encourage one to look in other fields of employment. Mine decided he couldn't do a simple waiver when I needed it to stay employed with the company.
Ramping was a fun job until a mere 45 pound samsonite flowered garment bag took out my shoulder when whatever was inside of it shifted while I was loading it. 45 miserable pounds when 70-80 was the norm. And oh yeah, lots of folks get injured ramping despite lifting by the book. Lucky me wasn't killed or hurt worse. Six years later and the arm still is not working properly. Each time I see the AME it’s holding my breath to see just how many hoops to jump through to get a medical renewed. It could be a year plus wait while paperwork processes including revocation of my current certificate, 'only' a checkride with the FAA for each class of medical I might ever want, or a simple 'here ya go see ya next year'. Surgeries 1 & 2 were “here ya go,” I might not be so lucky after surgeries 3 & 4.
Those that were FAs and other jobs in the AMR companies during the same time period moved on to AA and AE with minimal hours. The first few pilot classes after AA started hiring were 100% employees. Any tiny little miniscule benefit the AMR employee status gave was completely wiped out with that injury and replaced with a large black mark on my record for ANY job.
Part time, split rotating shifts, $2.00 an hour above minimum wage, travel benefits one never had the funds or the schedule to enjoy, and the all time favorite: the angry late passenger putting on a show for the significant other. . .
Working with and around airplanes, pilots, airlines; great coworkers; showing up on TDY in some strange airport and having an instant set of friends which continue to this day; learning how to wake up instantly and being able to eat airline food; constant upgrades to first class when on company business (annual training); the one-on-one tour of whatever airline's pilot training facility; once having positional seniority of a year able to transfer to thousands of open positions; the company pilot mentor program; and staring right down the nose of a 737 to get it parked right on the dime. . .
Ramping was a fun job. Being a flight instructor is far more fun. So is ground and simulator instructing.
Sitting on the sidelines for six years while one of the better hiring cycles passed by was not fun. It was even less fun watching those with less total time get hired and then having high enough senority to escape furloughs when the industry tanked. Four surgeries to attempt to correct the problem were not fun. Years of physical therapy also didn't rank up there in the top ten things I wanted to do in life. Not flying for six months or a year at a time hurt more than the injury. Complete financial ruin didn't matter as much as the not flying.
Go get the ground instructor ratings and do the ground schools for whatever FBO while you earn the flight instructor ticket. Get CFI as soon as possible. Then go flight instruct while you finish college. You'll graduate far ahead of those that ramped while in college who now need to start out flight instructing.
Passing an airline medical is out of the question for a few more years. It may be a decade before I can reach overhead again. There are still days when I can not use the arm.
There is risk in everything. Choose wisely.
Fly SAFE!
Jedi Nein
