Starting out in the career

[ryanair]

About me: I'm a finance major at NAU in Flagstaff who is interested in a pilot career and will be graduating in December 04'.

Question 1: I am thinking about getting a job at America West Airlines Headquarters in Phoenix in a financial analyst position. Because I don't know how an airline organization works, I pose this questin: is it possible to network within the airline organization in order to eventually make a complete profession (pilot) change within the same airline? What I mean is are the pilot recruiters networkable or not by employees in other departments?

Question 2: My most important question. Is it possible once I have my private license to get all of my other ratings while working full time and how long will this take?

Thanks

 

[Tired]

Getting your ratings while working a full-time job is the way to go. Sure, it will take a little longer, but I've seen people easily get through CFI in a year is they are dedicated. The less debt you take on the better off you will be. I would take the job and then get your private and see if flying professionally is something you want to do.

 

[ryanair]

Yeah, I thought it would be best to see how I liked flying the little planes and flying in general before I went all the way.

Do you know if the Air force gives eyesight waivers for certain aircraft even helicopters?

Do the major airlines look for pilots with 20/20 first? (I am correctible to 20/20)

 

[flyguy]

At pretty much all airlines you are fine if correctable to 20/20. For the Air Force you must be 20/70 or better uncorrected and correctable to 20/20, I'm not sure if this is waivable, but I have a friend who flies C-17s who says there is a waiver for just about everything the the AF. I'd be interrested myself to find out if eyesight is waiveable, because I'm also considering the Air Force.

 

[fly22]

Here here to Finance majors. I'm at the U of U and wish I was finishing up. Take the job that offers all of its perks and slowly work your way through it. I'm a mortgage broker and still have all of my mins for a reg. and I've stayed debt free!!! Its a good feeling to be at hiring mins and know you don't owe anyone your left nutty.

 

[aloft]

[ QUOTE ]
About me: I'm a finance major at NAU in Flagstaff who is interested in a pilot career and will be graduating in December 04'.

Question 1: I am thinking about getting a job at America West Airlines Headquarters in Phoenix in a financial analyst position. Because I don't know how an airline organization works, I pose this questin: is it possible to network within the airline organization in order to eventually make a complete profession (pilot) change within the same airline? What I mean is are the pilot recruiters networkable or not by employees in other departments?

[/ QUOTE ]This would probably work at a regional, but not at a major like America West; you've got to build your flight experience to meet their pilot hiring requirements, which are generally 1000 hrs of turbine PIC time (i.e., turboprop/jet captain time).

 

[Tired]

You don't need 1000 turbine PIC for America West, I know guys hired there recently without a sigle hour turbine PIC.

 

[FL270]

This sounds like a pretty good plan you have. Obviously, to one day transition to a pilot position with AW you'd have to meet all the same minimums and requirements as other candidates, but you certainly would have the opportunity to network in the office every day, which would be good. In order to get the required experience, you would (after all ratings are completed) at some point have to quit the finance job and fly full-time to accrue the required flight experience.

Good luck.

FL270

 

[Tired]

One thing I wouldn't do is to put yourself in a position where you are only working towards trying to get on with one airline. Don't turn down other oppurtunites in order to stick around America West and Phoenix. In reality your going to have to leave at some point to get some type of turbine expereince.

 

[ryanair]

Say I got all of my ratings and started to work on flight time while I was working a finance job...

Scenario 1: A friend and I go half and half on a used Cessna and build up flight time selling 1 hour scenic "evening flights" and personal recreation.

Scenario 2: I quit my job and go to a regional like America West Express or Mesa.

Will scenarios 1 and 2 get my foot in the door at a major and is the salary at scenario 2 liveable for a husband and wife.
**my goal like "fly22" is to keep the financial risk to a minimum.

 

[aloft]

[ QUOTE ]
Scenario 1: A friend and I go half and half on a used Cessna and build up flight time selling 1 hour scenic "evening flights" and personal recreation.

[/ QUOTE ]Such sightseeing flights were just made much more difficult by the FAA. I wouldn't count on being able to do this.

[ QUOTE ]
Scenario 2: I quit my job and go to a regional like America West Express or Mesa.

Will scenarios 1 and 2 get my foot in the door at a major and is the salary at scenario 2 liveable for a husband and wife.

[/ QUOTE ] Will it get your foot in the door at a major? Maybe. But it's what you have to do to be marketable when the majors resume hiring. Depends upon if you consider Mesa's starting FO salary of ~$18-20k livable. Does your wife work? Also, it's not just a matter of quitting your job and going to work for a regional; you're going to have to have upwards of 1000 hrs of flight experience (or jump through a number of hoops like internships, bridge programs and whatnot) before most regionals will look at you.

[ QUOTE ]
**my goal like "fly22" is to keep the financial risk to a minimum.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's everyone's goal; unfortunately, it's not particularly practical. Honestly, there's no safe, comfy, well-paying route to a job flying with a major. As pretty much everyone here will tell you, "making it" entails a substantial amount of financial sacrifice, which can be exceedingly tough if you don't have that burning passion for flying that most people who make it have. Like Doug says, plenty of people are interested in being a pilot, not so many are interested in becoming one.