The majors are tipping. Is anyone reconsidering their career goals?

[Guest]

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is anyone reconsidering their career goals?


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I am. Although being an airline pilot has always been my ultimate career goal, in the last couple of months I have began to reconsider my direction.

Once I leave UND I will more than likely be going home to attend law school. Law runs in the family, my dad and uncle both have both been very succesfull in the field of law as they both have their own firms. I worked for a law firm for two years during high school and found that it was definetely something that I was interested in. Hypothetically if everything works out, I'd like to CFI part time while I'm going through school. If I rack up enough time to have a chance at getting hired then great, otherwise I will have a great opportunity with my law degree.

I would love to fly for a living, but over the past couple of years reality has cought up to me. Everyone needs a solid back up plan.

 

[Tired]

Re: The majors are tipping. Is anyone reconsidering their career goal

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It's not just the pilots - it's the whole company.

Alot of ways. Power-off decents. Economical altitudes. Making good fuel choices. Taking every direct clearance you can get. Do away with assigned seating and board faster. Taxi faster.

There are a whole lot of ways to be more efficient.

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When I say productive I mean getting more work out of your captial and workforce. Southwest and JetBlue get more hours out of their airplanes each day then the majors, meaning more revenue out of less airplanes. Favorable work rules (for the company) and lines with more flying per day help also. Moreover, operating as few types of equipment is a great help. If you only operate one type, that's only two major training events per pilot per career. If you have multiple types then pilots always want to bid between equipment, which costs a bunch of money even with seat locks.

As far as something replacing airlines I wouldn't worry about it. The only tech right now that would work would be high speed trains, maybe MAGLEVs. However, there number of problems...first is cost. Trains require even more captial then airplanes, and they are not as flexable as airplanes. You can take an airplane and fly a different route, or change the size of equipment on the same route. With a train you are pretty much stuck with the route you planned years ago when construction began. Lastly, high speed trains will require tax $$$, it's already bad enough that United is still trying to get ATSB money, I can't imgaine billions of federal dollars for high speed trains in the near future.

 

[flyover]

Re: The majors are tipping. Is anyone reconsidering their career goal

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As far as something replacing airlines I wouldn't worry about it. ...... I can't imgaine billions of federal dollars for high speed trains in the near future.

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Agree with you on the train thing. And there will be airlines, just not as many. This is simply the market working to get the inefficiency out of the system. Some companies will come out the other side, some won't. In 10 years this whole thing will have made a lot of sense. The market always eventually forces things to an efficient point. But it can look like total chaos getting there. Usually because the government / politicians just have to get involved and try to "save" it. As soon as the politicans try to "save" an industry you can count on lots of chaos. But even politicans can't stop free-market forces.

Dave

 

[Icelandair]

Re: The majors are tipping. Is anyone reconsidering their career goal

When is the last time you asked the operator to connect you for a phone call?

Back in the early 1900's people asked the government to "save the stagecoach industry" from the cars, because "jobs would disappear."

The free market is the most efficient way of doing things.

Government control of everything (socialism for those of you in Rio Lindo) leads to inefficiency and less production.

 

[flyover]

Re: The majors are tipping. Is anyone reconsidering their career goal

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Government control of everything (socialism for those of you in Rio Lindo) leads to inefficiency and less production.

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And lower pay and standards of living. On the other hand it is utopia.

 

[flyover]

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Let's not forget that the major airlines are not the ONLY flying jobs out there. If you're into airlines, some of the regionals are becoming good places to stay for a long time. CHQ is becoming one of the best ones around, and I wouldn't be surprised to see pilots turn down jobs at AA or Delta to stay there.

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There is another interesting dynamic that will play out here too. When ALPA decided to play the scope game they did it to preserve mainline pay rates for their members. ie it was a short term pocketbook issue that ignored some basic union principles. Later when they saw the tremendous success of the regionals they hastily organized them into ALPA. But they were stuck with the scope clauses.

Essentially this means mainline pilots are expecting the regional guys to forego any chance to fly higher paying equipment, just for the sake of protecting the mainline pilots paycheck.

This will not last much longer IMO. So more of the "regionals" will get the chance to fly bigger jets. This can only be accelerated if ALPA stiffens it's resolve at the mainline carriers.

I felt a long time ago that ALPA had signed it's own death warrant as a national union when it went for scope clauses.

My point is that if you have a long career ahead, a company like CHQ may have the most opportunity, even with the bigger jets. It will be interesting to see how that all plays out.