What are you gonna do when your airline Tango Uniforms?

I'm an A&P, I enjoy that, if I couldn't find anything doing that I could go work at a car dealership and make the proverbial fat cash. I don't enjoy working on cars though.

I will be eternally grateful for my adviser at SJSU who sat down with me and said "You will need a backup plan in this business, so you should consider the maintenance program." At the time I was going for a flight operations degree.

I do look forward to the day where I don't have to get dirty for a living... but I can think of worse things.
 
While I am only a private pilot, I would go from the air to the sea.

I would follow in my dads footsteps and become an engineer. Nothing like tinkering with engines two storys tall:bandit:
 
Like Tony said, you always have to have a backup plan. Even if it's waiting tables to pay the mortgage. I don't care what you do or where you work. You never know when management will change and the new guys come in and blow everyone out.
 
Is basically a euphemism for lying flat on your back, floating in the water dead.

Even though I believe, corpses float face down.

I haven't drown many people so I rarely stopped to check :sarcasm:.
 
ASpilot2be said:
While I am only a private pilot, I would go from the air to the sea.
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I am surprised that more pilots are not attracted to this sort of back-up plan (coast guard, navy, merchant marine, sailboat racing, etc.). Astronauts, aviators, and sailors are all essentially made from the same stuff. They seek to explore and to command a vessel and crew. It's just the medium that changes.
 
Is there any kind of statistic showing how many times the average pilot gets furloughed? What about years seniority and likelihood to be furloughed.

I have been reading a lot of doom and gloom on this site lately. Is it that only those who look for, and like to point out the negatives are dominating the conversations or do 90% of pilots face multiple furloughs through out their careers.

I am toward the end of my PPL and plan to continue on to make this a career. Hopefully when I am ready to apply the whole situation will have worked itself out and I will be able to get in with a good regional.
 
I've never been furloughed and I only sat reserve probably two or three weeks my entire career.

Is that good? :)

There's been kind of a quadruple-whammy in the airline business this week with Champion, Aloha, ATA and Skybus so everyone's a little on edge.

Long term, the industry will be fine. In the short term, it's going to "interesting" to say the least. I think the name of the game is international exposure and being part of a network that has it.

Grandma might not have the discretionary income to fly from Kalamazoo to Orlando to see the grandparents, but ER's have been packed to the brim with Europeans taking advantage of the exchange rate.
 
Realms09 said:
I am surprised that more pilots are not attracted to this sort of back-up plan (coast guard, navy, merchant marine, sailboat racing, etc.). Astronauts, aviators, and sailors are all essentially made from the same stuff. They seek to explore and to command a vessel and crew. It's just the medium that changes.
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Agreed. I actually got into sailing because I found that it's as much fun as flying was before I started doing it for a living. It's very similar in lots of ways.
 
Doug Taylor said:
I've never been furloughed and I only sat reserve probably two or three weeks my entire career.

Is that good? :)

There's been kind of a quadruple-whammy in the airline business this week with Champion, Aloha, ATA and Skybus so everyone's a little on edge.

Long term, the industry will be fine. In the short term, it's going to "interesting" to say the least. I think the name of the game is international exposure and being part of a network that has it.

Grandma might not have the discretionary income to fly from Kalamazoo to Orlando to see the grandparents, but ER's have been packed to the brim with Europeans taking advantage of the exchange rate.
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I would say you had it pretty rough! ha ha
 
ZapBrannigan said:
Always a pleasure to use a few minutes of Benjamin's naptime to share my opinions on a Delta pilot's message board rather than doing what I SHOULD be and making a dent in my honey-do list. :)
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Oh, just say your forgot & take the butt chewing like a man:nana2::rawk:
 
E_Dawg said:
Putting the ugly, ugly side of prof aviation - furloughs and layoffs - aside for a second...

My roommate has a new professional level job. The dude leaves for work at 6:30am, doesn't get back until around 9:30p. 5 days a week, and sometimes does biz meetings on the weekends. He's about the same age as I am, college education, etc.

Don't know how much he makes, but I'd be surprised if it's much more than what I'm pulling as a 2nd year regional FO. Last month I had 18 days off and used my benefits to go to Israel and Ireland for next to nothing. I think he had something like 6 days off.

Work sucks. But I think it could be a lot worse. For some workers abroad, work IS their life. They put in 14hr days, 7 days a week, and make hardly anything in USD. Made me feel all the lazier talking to them.

Or maybe I've had to much kool-aid since this post wasn't 100% negative ;)
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I thought Europeans got a month of paid vacation off each year... correct me if Im wrong.
 
SpiraMirabilis said:
Mr. Treehorn draws a lot of water in this town, Taylor. You don't draw %$%&^. We got a nice quiet beach community here, and I aim to keep it nice and quiet. So let me make something plain. I don't like you sucking around bothering our citizens, Taylor. I don't like your jerk-off name, I don't like your jerk-off face, I don't like your jerk- off behavior, and I don't like you, jerk-off --do I make myself clear?
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You know the beautiful thing is that scene is taken almost directly from a Raymond Chandler novel ("Playback"). Philip Marlowe was a big influence on the Cohen brothers for the movie ... 'cause, although he denies it, The Dude is a brother shamus.
 
Matt13C said:
I have been reading a lot of doom and gloom on this site lately. Is it that only those who look for, and like to point out the negatives are dominating the conversations or do 90% of pilots face multiple furloughs through out their careers.
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I was spewing doom and gloom long before Aloha, ATA, & Skybus. ;) J/K
Seriously though, if it was me you were talking about I apologize for tarnishing your dream. That was not my intention. What you -- and I hope others in your situation -- need to realize is that it CAN happen to you. Doug apparently got very, very lucky and I suspect he would admit that. The choices he made were really no better than mine. We both started flying very young. We both went to turboprop commuters. I added a stepping stone (AirTran) before going to the majors and that didn't work out for me but it wasn't a BAD choice. It was simply a matter of timing, the economic cycle, and being in the wrong place on the seniority list at the wrong time.

That being said, stuff happens. I have a college room-mate who went to ATA in 1997 and last week showed up for work to find he no longer had a job. 11 years is a long time to suddenly be tossed out. Most of my close friends have had to endure at least one additional furlough (or bankruptcy or airline shutdown) since 09/11. Guys I worked with at US Airways went to Vanguard, Eastwind, Great Plains, MidAtlantic... all ended up on the street once again (or back at a commuter).

So don't take this as an attack on your dreams so much as a wake-up call. The airline profession puts no premium on experience. If Delta went Tango-Uniform tomorrow, Doug would get another job, but he would start over at the very bottom of someone else's seniority list, probably as a narrowbody copilot. They won't care that Doug has years of experience flying heavies over the pond. So he likely has a plan B that will allow him to absorb the impact to pay and lifestyle that such an event would cause.

THAT is what this thread is all about. You would never shoot an ILS to minimums without carefully briefing and planning the missed approach. Maybe you've already discussed with your FO that you will try two ILS's and then divert to XYZ where the weather is better. So why would the same pilot who uses a plan B every single day of their professional life... be any LESS thorough when planning for the "approach" to their profession?

International terrorism, rising oil prices, inept airline management, inept airline unions, outsourcing narrowbody flying, cabotage... if this isn't the airline equivalent of an ILS in a snowstorm (with the glideslope out) I don't know what is. Go ahead and fly to minimums, but be prepared to go missed if you don't see anything at the MDA when the time runs out.

Good luck!
 
I've got several backup options, none of which I'm inclined to discuss on a public message board. That said, if that's what it came to tomorrow and I never flew professionally again, I would have zero regrets.

I'm 50/50 on how that feels. I could walk away without caring and I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Anyway, I agree with those that say to always have a backup plan. While I'd like to make a career of this (even at my current company, if it ends up being possible), I'm not about to shoot myself in the foot acting irresponsibly and not having something as a backup.

-mini
 
Zap you should write a book. Excellent writing skills. Your "US airways recall take it or leave it" post should probably be published somewhere.
 
Thanks. I've thought about writing a book, but I couldn't think of a topic that would be anything more than a short story. And who wants to read the autobiographical ramblings of a former airline pilot? lol
 
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