SkyHigh

Sure most industries are no sure thing, but few can say it with such certainty. Step back and examine the progression of pilot pay, benefits, status and demand since deregulation on and you will see the future brightly.

A plumber will always be in demand. Police have a secure job.

Pilots will be needed too and the future looks bright for being able to get a job, because in the future no one will want them anymore.

SkyHigh

Spartan07

Sky, I hate pouring gas on an open flame but I have to know. If you hate aviation -so- much for ruining your life that you take every precaution as to keep your children from catching the dream of flight as if it were some kind of infectious disease, or some kind of street drug (Which I could actually see being plausible), What in the world prompted you to go to a local flight school/flight college?

SkyHigh

Well for starters I loved flying. I took my first flight lesson at 14, spent newspaper route money on plane rides. I passed my private pilot ground school while still in high school. Most of all however, the reason I went into flying professionally was that I didn't have a skyhigh of my own to set me strait.

There were no places where a young person could go to learn the down sides of the industry. Flying magazine and AOPA are pushers.

SKyHigh

Yzerman

I honestly do not understand this part of your post. No one will want pilots anymore?

In response:

The future does not necessarily equal the past, although I realize that an understanding of the past can only help one's future. And I agree with you when you repeatedly state that the aviation industry HAS BEEN (and possibly STILL IS) going to sh!t.

However, I choose NOT to believe that it will continue much longer in a downward spiral, as it seems that you do. I believe that conditions will improve for most pilots, IF we can understand what has happened in the past, and use that knowledge to change our future.

Yeah, this all probably sounds cliche, and yes I'm relatively new in the game, but I really do believe that the dedicated, intelligent, educated, concerned pilots in the industry today (such as myself, and many others I know) will be able to START to turn things around. This sh1t's gonna take time. I'm willing to invest the time. I'm willing (when I'm off probation) to vote NO to subpar contracts. I'm willing to take POSITIVE suggestions.

What else can I do? This is an honest - not rhetorical - question. I want to fly until I retire. And not just to prove you, SkyHigh, wrong - but because it's what I've wanted to do for so long I can't even remember otherwise.

Thank you, thank you very much \Elvis


19

Yzerman

That sounds classically and happily familiar up until that crap at the end.

... Yeah, so I didn't become a construction worker (or whatever the hell) simply because some construction worker dude told me it sucked for him back in the day, and would suck forever and ever until eternity

GauleyPilot

Hey Red:

Even though I sometimes ask myself "Why did I do this", the fact is that flying is a part of me, it is a passion that has no substitute. It has been a big part of my identity. I love all things flying to the point I would spend a time on a nice weekend to write this.

Im just now learning not to let it be the only thing that I use to identify myself. I have come to the conclusion that when my friends and family think of ways to describe me, I would like for "pilot" be further down on the list. I don't want it to consume all of my identity anymore.

SkyHigh

You are in luck!

If all you want out of life is to fly then you hardly will be disappointed. In the future there will be plenty of flying jobs because no one will want to become pilots anymore with such High costs of education and training for low pay and poor working conditions.

These could be the best of times considering your perspective and needs. I always was held down by income and lifestyle requirements that would accommodate a family life. What I like to address are the other things in life. We can have whatever we want in life but not everything. Increasingly an aviation career excludes all else; friends, family, home, marriage, children, financial security and self respect.

If you are comfortable with that then you will enjoy a long and fruitful career. If you have a girlfriend, dump her. If you enjoy other hobbies then get rid of them. Start now to shed everything else in your life in order to give yourself the best chance at a flying career.

SkyHigh

robthree

Wow, $210 a week in 1991!

That's about what I was paying a month for an 'ok' 2 br apartment in '91.

Now I make about $350/wk as an RJ driver, and pay $1500 a month rent.

Billy32

6.00/Hr X 40 = 240.00 minus some taxes and it is about 210.00. Not bad back then for a high school kid, but I definately worked for it. Minimum wage back then was 4.25. Even at minumum wage I would have been doing alright. I paid 500.00 for my car and gas was 0.91/Gallon. Not to mention I lived at home. Money used to go a whole lot further, at least it seems that way to me.

172capt

Wow you just have a answer to everything. I guess all those people who study economics and supply and demand know nothing. But you skyhigh know everything. Take your negativity and bull$hit somewhere else because we don't care what you have to say anymore your like a annoying broken record that we don't want to hear anymore. Obviously you get off by coming on here and smashing everyones dream to do something they might love. Do you think teachers teach for the money well surprise most don't they do it for the love of their career. Everyone rags on instructors who are just doing it for the time and don't care enough. Well if instructors who did care did it for the money they we wouldn't have any instructors. Sorry your life sucked as a airline pilot but you no longer need to remind us of that cause we have heard it over 2000 times. Go get a new hobby because you obviously have no life with all the time you spend on here. Maybe your new job allows you to but if you make so much money at that spend it on something to entertain yourself.