JohnBurke

Still living like a king?

The pied piper of negativity, here to drag away those who would follow into your sorrow, your song is that you left aviation because you couldn't live like a king. How goes it, your highness?

Grass still greener on the other side?

SkyHigh

JohnB,

My aim for becoming an airline pilot was so that the career could provide the resources needed to build a full life upon. Airline pilots I knew as a child growing up in a suburb of Seattle were in the same tax brackets as surgeons, investment bankers, and corporate lawyers. As with those professions aviation required a massive investment and was offered to me as able furnish a similar return from that effort. As we all know those days are long gone and mostly hardship remains. Pilots are a captive work force. They commonly choose a disadvantaged position with their employers to remain in the saddle. As a result they will continue to receive a depreciating return on their investment.

After being laid off and forced to see the world from the outside I was shocked to discover how much better life is on the other side. My current business cost me less than a thousand dollars total and provides more than any aviation job I ever had, or hoped to have. A major goal of mine here is to pass along the information that there is a life after aviation and when applying the same efforts is very rewarding. Pilots are goal oriented, intelligent, and gifted. The outside world is easier to compete in and as a result offers a better return on ones efforts. I will concede that my current means of support is not glamorous or fun. My days often are hard and boring. I have struggled for more than a decade to get my business where it is today. In trade however my customers pay for my services. As a result my family lives well and enjoys a standard of living that is even better than I had hoped for as a pilot.

My response is that life on the other side is greener. I have options, resources, and control over my life. My family is much happier living in a place of our choosing among friends and family. They like having their husband and father home and able to participate in everyday life. My children are growing up with the knowledge that they have a father and that I am available. I am approaching a time where staff can help with my work duties and I am free to pursue aviation again. If I choose to return to professional aviation I am free to decide the terms of my engagement. I don't have to pick a job that pays the most. I could choose to tow gliders, fly seaplanes again, or skydivers. If things are not good I can quit. The grass is much greener, but it means putting the big boy pants on and working at a real job that is usually not fun most of the time.

Skyhigh

JohnBurke

You have lied about the good old days many times now, and you've been called out and exposed on those lies, time and time again. You do this to create the illusion of a crumbling industry and a great disparity, but it's a lie. You spout numbers that aren't realistic.

What you have said, repeatedly, is that you entered the business to live like a king. Clearly you're not. Clearly you haven't. You try to draw off pilots by spouting your lies and tales of woe, you try to get them to follow you away from the industry. You tell us that you're leading them to a life that you don't like, to a "job that is not fun most of the time."

Going to save us from a job that we enjoy, a lifestyle we enjoy, and a great income, are you? Want us to follow you?

It's wonderful that you've found a life after aviation. Most of us here have a life in aviation.

Don't prattle on about the righteous goal you claim to have. The thread is titled "Don't follow your passion." That was your title; abandon your dreams, you say. It must really pain you to visit a place where so many are living theirs.

You didn't have what it took to compete in this world, so perhaps your current one is best for you. From your description, it doesn't sound that way, but it's really irrelevant. You quit, and you are where you are.

Yep; sounds like life as a king. Well done.

Living that dream, your highness. You do know how to live. Best of luck to you.

Yes, you could choose to quit again, couldn't you? When it comes to quitting aviation, it's something at which you excel.

kevbo

I would say that the grass is greener at all levels below airline CEO. Aviation is great as an expensive hobby, not often a great way to make a living.

SkyHigh

JohnB,

By all means enjoy your aviation career. Plenty of others however are looking for a different life. My aim is to provide the alternative. An opposing view to the commonly held aviation dogma that "everything is alright".

I do not want to be poor for this career. My family should not have to suffer due to my profession if there is an alternative. Lastly it seems to me that you get what you pay for in this life. If you want to have fun at work then expect to get a pretend paycheck.

I want choices, options, resources, and a measure of some control. If aviation has always been this bad then why do any of us pursue it? It is a self indulgence that most of us can not afford.

Skyhigh

SkyHigh

An issue that has always bothered me about modern aviation careers is in regards to the elimination of a pension. The 401K when maxed out at a legacy airline seems like an answer but I do not think it is correct. The most optimistic of projections assumes perhaps as much as one or two million dollars in savings at retirement. Thirty years from now is not going to be all that much. This projection omits the likelihood of threats such as furlough, merger, shortened career due to loss of medical. I saw a lot of guys retire from the airlines after decades of daily effort with slim futures ahead.

This career is especially financially punishing in that as a civilian pilot one must front the cost of a small starter house in order to provide for ones training and education. To then be followed by an uncertain but usually lengthy period of low wage jobs building experience before one can even consider applying for a job that holds the hope of providing a middle class income.

Starting out so deep in the hole is a massive negative that is difficult to comprehend when young. Our retirements are really made in our 20's and 30's. It takes the time value of money to convert modest savings into a fortune at 65. When starting out with 150K in student debt even the most rosy of optimistic career progressions leaves the pilot at a huge disadvantage. Pilots need to be earning far more then they do when taking the costs into consideration.


The Retirement Gamble | FRONTLINE

SKyhigh

USMCFLYR

An absolutely ignorant statement.

tomgoodman

Maybe it's something he ate.

hindsight2020

Great point Sky. This is an excellent point that is often dismissed by younger aspirants. To be clear, this looming catastrophe is not limited to airline pilots. The entire lower 90% of income earners are going to face this problem in infirmity and it's one of the greatest transfers of wealth away from labor and into the capital owners. The 401k bait and switch Americans are getting screwed with will rear its ugly face once the youngest boomers, i.e. the earliest of the non-pension generations, begin dropping off the payrolls. The typical retort by private industry is that these folks have hybrid pensions and that's why it's ok 401k balances are laughlably low. well, that's coming to an end with the last boomers. Here comes hurt city and the "social security retirement" for 150K/yr households and below of the Gen X and beyond variety. They'll never know what hit 'em.

As it relates to paid pilots, the retirement solvency problem is specifically accentuated by the heavily protracted compensation model of pilot work. Put simply, pilots earn too little for too long , through the most important decades of their compound interest generating years, and mainline pilot scales and the optimistic expectation of access to them, are simply not enough in dollar amount to catch you up in your 40s/50s. Furthermore, the proposition of HAVING to work until 65 in order for the math to work is a huge occupational concession compared to lesser earning peers.

B-funds are a good thing for the airline model, alas it is not widespread enough at the lower levels, and that's a problem. To me, Southwest's unwillingness to even touch the subject is indicative of the kind of corporate mentality towards labor. From where I sit, that is more important than the payscales outright. My retirement needs are not elastic, therefore funding them with profit sharing is not good enough. To me, lack of a teens B-fund is a non-starter.

In the end, there's worse jobs than that of airline pilot, but retirement insolvency is a HUGE problem for most W-2 earning Americans, and as a taxpayer I have a vested interest in ensuring the rest of the street doesn't fall into poverty the second they stop working. In the case of airline pilots, the opportunity cost of accepting that level of prolonged paycut in some supposed "apprenticeship period" that exceeds 10 years for most applicants, nevermind the built-in volatility of the job (years of no-income/no-contribution), is high-threat for retirement solvency. Aspirants who dismiss that opportunity cost because they're too preoccupied with their aversion towards desk work, are being extremely myopic.

If I were advising my son regarding being a paid pilot, I'd say unless the apprenticeship is subsidized, the math doesn't really work out for a head of household. That subsidy can take the form of military experience, ab initio, external training subsidy or marital access/employment access to second sources of income. Of course, that allocution hints at the politically incorrect notion that if you need to subsidize a job with other sources of income, then it's not a bona fide job, but a hobby. When Spirit folks remark to their military membership not to consider their retirement checks and medical as part of their math when negotiating, I kinda rest my case. But I'll digress as I want to keep the scope of my commentary to the retirement angle, not the hobby debate about "pilots behaving avocationally at work".

I know this is America and "nobody owes their neighbor" any deference, but it's about time we as the collective labor market, airline and non-airline alike, start exercising some unity on the retirement vehicles front, or we're gonna get rounded up by the 401k scam and fed ALPO in "retirement" for 30 years of high-productivity work and a misguided sense of indignity towards our fellow prole.

USMCFLYR

Nicely presented information without all of the drama hindsight.
Now that post ought to make people think.