freezingflyboy

I don't care what anyone says, she can sling my gear any time. Any. Time.

prex8390

ditto. get in with her and become a stay at home husband

GVGUY

I have done both. I would recommend 121 over any corporate job. I have four type ratings and have over 8 thousand hours. I have risen to the top as they say in the corporate world. I was flying the G550 at my last job (which is comparable to a twelve year capt on a mainline pay wise). I've flown all over the world. However, a major would much rather hire a regional fo who has 2 thousand hours and hasn't even been outside the U.S. Currently, I'm unemployed and bust my ..s every day to find work. I'm considering going back to a regional for 25 dollars and hour. If I had it to do over again I would most certainly go the 121 route.

Paid2fly

I know where you're coming from, been there done that...

Jason5

Encouraging. I just turned down a pretty good 91k/fractional job to keep building 121 PIC time at my crappy regional. Hoping it will pay off.

ZapBrannigan

The fortune 10 flight department I worked for has lost 10% of its pilots in the last 18 months. Of those, 50% went to part 121 majors, the remainder went to other corporate departments (1 to another Fortune 500, 2 to the Middle East)

They also lost the manager of safety and have yet to fill his position. They really don't want someone in charge of safety or training. They just want to be able to tell ISBAO that they do.

ZapBrannigan

I'll reiterate what I said before. When I left part 121 to take a job flying for a Fortune 10 flight department it was the best kept secret in aviation. Good pay, terrific schedule, lots of time off. The department had never furloughed, the equipment and people were great and the flying was easy. But the dirty little secret in corporate is that there is no contract to protect quality of life. So it doesn't take much for that great schedule to go to awful in the blink of an eye. In our case it took the layoff of 10% of the pilots out of seniority order. This created a culture of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. It also understaffed the department to the point that days off were rescinded and vacations cancelled.

I was just about to turn 40 and had been with the department for almost a decade. I was on a light jet fleet. It's true that corporate pilots can sometimes go from Captain to captain when starting at a new company - but typically only in highly desirable fleets like Challengers, Globals, and Gulfstreams. It isn't as common in light jets where pilots are a dime a dozen.

I worried what would happen if I were in the next round of layoffs (there are no recalls in part 91 corporate) when I was 50 or 55 or 60 and not ready to retire.

It was time to go back to a system that wasn't based on whether you wee in the good old boys club, but where you knew the rules to the game based on where your seniority number fell.

There are a lot of things I miss about corporate flying, but don't mistake that to mean that I regret my decision to go back to 121. The only thing I regret is not doing it sooner.

NineGturn

I think you just hit the nail on the head there but didn't realize...

"The lure of mainline" is the only reason airlines are able to pay so low....even the mainlines pay super low salaries for the most part.

I amazes me still that no one seems to notice the problem when there are only a few decent jobs for every hundred or so qualified pilots in America. This delusion that you must desperately hang on to that bottom rung along with everyone else for the mere hope that one day you will win the lottery.

The problem now is that many smaller part 135 "corporate" operators are also playing this game and offering low paying FO jobs with the lure of slightly higher but still pitifully low captain jobs with the type rating that you need to get that high end corporate job that is super rare.

If professional pilots stopped thinking that the goal is a bigger plane and instead focused on the career itself we would all do a lot better.

That being said....you can do international long haul and oceanic flights in a mid sized biz-jet these days and whether the HR departments at the major airlines think so or not that's better aviation experience then city hopping in a regional jet. You also can develop other skills and get to meet interesting people and go to cool places which may cause you to rethink your career.

NineGturn

If you had to do it over again? You mean from after the point where you decided to get into aviation in the first place?

TeddyKGB

I would go to 9E. In 4 years you will make close to a quarter of a million dollars. Not too shabby.