PearlPilot

...Without ever getting furloughed, laid off, or "released?" I see a bunch of U.S. regionals are laying off...So I am curious to know, if you were to start your career and work your way up, how would you do it?

USN C9B

In short: No.

IMO, the safest bet is the US government but that has it's own issues too.

C9

rickair7777

I will rule out military, because we are talking about flying. The military WILL kick you out when you are still in your prime earning years unless you get promoted to General or Admiral...and senior officers almost never get to fly airplanes.

I would say FDX/UPS are safest...they have rock solid business models, provide an indispensible service, and more importantly, the barriers to entry for anyone wanting to compete are astronomically high. Anyone with $100M can start up a low cost passenger airline, but a global package delivery service would require tens of billions of dollars in startup costs, plus untold political and regulatory hurdles in hundreds of different nations. The only real hazard here is automation...but the technical and regulatory hurdles are so large that this is probably not a danger in our working lifetimes. But the cargo airlines will get automated before the pax guys.

Next safest would be US government civilian pilot jobs...but the problem here is that the government could easily eliminate or outsource almost any of the current programs. The safest would probabaly be the FAA...you usually can't privatize the law enforcement.

Out of the passenger airlines, probably SWA. Even they are not furlough-proof in the event of a catastrophe, but it is highly likely that they will remain in business for the forseeable future so you will get recalled eventually. Any of the other pax airlines could easily end up liquidated.

UnlimitedAkro

American airlines is the least safe because the FAA fines them more money than anyone else for safety issues. Oh wait, you meant for furloughing...

Then American Airlines is still the least safest.

Aww too bad.

USMCFLYR

[quote=rickair7777;449216]I will rule out military, because we are talking about flying. The military WILL kick you out when you are still in your prime earning years unless you get promoted to General or Admiral...and senior officers almost never get to fly airplanes.

You ain't singing Dixie here RickAir !
Sometimes you wonder if it won't come soon enough!

Agree with the thought of the cargo. Nothing scares packages.

Gov't contract flying and pure gov't flying are pretty safe. Just awful hard to get into it seems.

USMCFLYR

ERJ135

I think Netjets is pretty safe.

Hound

Go to test pilot school. There are ALWAYS test pilot jobs with either Boeing, FAA, small manufactuers, GA insudtry etc. It's expensive and will take about a year but it is as "secure" a career in aviation as can be.