SkyHigh

If anyone here gets laid off and has been considering a career change it can be a blessing in disguise. The government is eager to help and offers many programs to displaced workers. Along with unemployment income You can also get college and other training paid for. They really roll out the red carpet for a displaced worker. If you were to quit however then that is a different story. I took full advantage of everything the government had to offer when I was laid off. It was a big help.

SkyHigh

birdlj

We all took the job for low pay, and lousy conditions. It will not get better until low time pilots stop taking these jobs. That just ain't gonna happen. I do see now some people avoiding the 121 regionals and sticking with charter or corporate jobs because the money and conditions are better (different). No matter what though, its called work. And work is hard and tiring. No matter where you work. If you own the company, it's even harder. In order to be happy, you have to enjoy your work. Its easier to enjoy work when you make $250K a year and work 10 days a month, but those days are gone forever. Enjoy your job, be happy. Money will come eventually.

SkyHigh

Are you sure about that? Seems to me that it is that same head in the sand approach that got us all into this situation.

Skyhigh

JoeyMeatballs

decent pay may end up coming, but after the years and years of poverty type wages, its pretty much a washout....... God im turning quiet cynical. On a positive note, I am going up again in a 172 next week, Grass roots flying is where its at . I am even going to ask if they need some help around there. I was so eager to leave Instructing and the small FBO scene I never had time to enjoy it.

GauleyPilot

I have wondered if small FBOs and part 61 training will be around much longer. I hope they are, but I don't know.

jelloy683

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...727702,00.html

International Departures


For captain Brian Murray, the memory of the way pilots and crew were treated during the airline bankruptcies of the 1980s still stings. "Planes were parked. Crews were out and had to find their own way home," says the former Piedmont Airlines pilot. "We were bringing people home in the cockpit and in the back of the cabin." After 23 years of flying mainline American carriers, Murray, 54, says he became "tired of watching senior management march through the airline and leave with huge golden parachutes."





So in July 2004 he jumped too, from U.S. Airways to Dubai-based Emirates. His new company provides him with a freshly pressed uniform and a chauffeur-driven car to each flight. Murray has twice the vacation time (42 days), guaranteed annual raises and a benefits package that has lured more than 100 U.S. pilots to Emirates over the past four years. One-third of the 23 former U.S. Airways pilots at Emirates had the option to return when the airline recalled them from furlough after the cuts in 2004. Only one did. "It's just not worth it," Murray says. "Employees have been beaten down to the lowest common denominator, where the salary, benefits and career path are so miserable--so uncertain." And maybe it's also because the guys who once ruled the U.S. skies now have a different status at the legacy carriers--employee.
That sentiment--a common one among the more than 10,000 U.S. airline pilots put on furlough between late 2001 and 2006--has led to what many airline experts call a major shortage of pilots willing to work for U.S. carriers. Bankruptcies, pay cuts, frozen pensions, eroded job security and increases in monthly flight hours have pushed some pilots out of the industry. Others have simply picked up and followed the best jobs overseas. Emirates, for example, expects to hire 540 pilots this year. Half the applicants are Americans, compared with just 7% of its current pilots. The result is a massive shift of talent and experience from U.S. carriers into the international market.


Pilots flying for airlines in foreign markets say they are treated like upper-level managers, with something they feel they no longer get in the U.S.: respect. China and India are signing up pilots with two-to-five-year contracts and giving them the chance to move around the world without having to start at the bottom and advance--something stifled by the seniority system in the U.S. "It's an amazing opportunity," says Murray.
And the word is quickly getting out to pilots in training. An aviation major and recent graduate of Georgia State University, Adnan Pochi, 21, has been flying since age 15 and has already racked up 300 flying hours. Although he will probably start off at a U.S. regional carrier, Pochi is attracted to the energy at airlines overseas. He hopes someday to go to India to work for Kingfisher Airlines. "They're hiring like crazy," says Pochi. "It's a big market."
The U.S. is still the world's pilot training ground, but the pool of young talent is drying up. The number of military pilots, once a reliable source of commercial recruits, has been declining. Flight instructors, whom the industry needs to keep the pipeline of new pilots flowing, are hopping abroad rather than spending years racking up hours to qualify for bottom-rung U.S. pilot posts. And only about 20% of furloughed pilots are coming back to work, compared with 80% to 90% historically, says Jerry Glass, a Washington-based consultant and president of F&H Solutions Group.


So who will fill the estimated 12,000 new airline pilot jobs created this year in the U.S.? Major airlines can still skim off the top to fill plum jobs with eager regional pilots, but then those regional positions will need to be filled. That is forcing some smaller carriers, such as Pinnacle Airlines and Comair, to reduce flight-hour requirements for experienced pilots or offer training-completion bonuses to new flight-school graduates.
Captain John Prater, president of the Air Lines Pilots Association, says a shortage of qualified pilots is severely affecting some regionals' ability to fly, tempting them to push pilots to fly beyond Federal Aviation Administration maximum flight times. Chronic pilot fatigue jeopardizes safety--and the pipeline's flow. "You destroy the benefit and the value of being an airline pilot, and people will take their skills elsewhere," he says. And they are.

JoeyMeatballs

great read!

Lighteningspeed

I don't think there will be any qualified pilot shortage in the US for a very long time. Only pilot shortage that I am aware is overseas. This is why foreign airlines treat their pilots so much better.

This skyrocketing oil price is killing the airline industry. Let's hope the airline industry settles down to a steady growth period for a change from 2008 onward. I know this is a wishful thinking, but hey, it could happen. Otherwise we are all in for a roller coaster ride, unless you get off first.

JoeyMeatballs

I understand oil is traded in the Dollar, wish is low, however when it was higher how were the European airlines handling this? It seems as though their industry has never gotten as bad as bad as ours is here, due to fuel. I am asking cause I have no idea, anyone have any insight?

Lighteningspeed

I was referring to both European and Asian airlines. For one thing, European and Asian airlines do not have CEOs that receives mega million dollar bonuses and salaries when the airline is not performing well. Even during good times, their CEOs and top executives' salaries are reasonbale as compared to those of US airlines CEOs and executives. When I say reasonable, they are well below the million dollar mark. NWA CEO received 47 million dollar bonus after NWA came out of bankruptcy when NWA pilots took a 40% paycut. Also, the fuel price charged at the pump is highly regulated, and for that matter so is the oil industry in those nations.