Choices, choices

[GoldenRivet]

Under the crushing peer pressure and my own selfish desires, i have managed to successfully interview at a regional airline.

The pilot shortage which has been forecast for ages has either stricken with full force, or many of these airlines have been mismanaging their workforce for some time (could be both) because they are trying to lure experienced pilots back by offering - in some cases - as much as $45,000 sign on bonus to take the job.

to be clear, the offer is on the table, but i have not yet accepted it, though they will be calling me within a matter of days to discuss my decision, so i am having to make up my mind pretty quickly.

seems like a simple choice really... but it isnt.

the conundrum is simple. Legally speaking, in order to serve as an airline captain, one must have to have 1,000 hours as a first officer in an airline operation. These airlines have hired lots of people the past couple of years, but as captains move on to bigger and better things, thereby creating vacant captain seats, the airlines turn to their first officers to fill them only to find that the majority of their first officers are several months of flying shy of their coveted 1,000 hours airline time and are therefore not legally qualified to serve as captains - yet. So where does an airline get a couple hundred captains right now? they have planes to fly and they cant do it without crews... well...

because i am a former airline pilot with over 1,000 hours of airline flying in my logbooks, i qualify for an immediate captain position with the airline in question. and thats where the fast track to the captain seat and the bonus come into play

bad news is, (1) i will be based in either New York or Chicago for the next 12-18 months, where they are most hurting for captains and frankly... i do not want to be in either of those places for really any reason (2) even though i jump right into the captain seat, i will still be a new hire, which means that every single first officer hired before me, will be senior to me, and they will very soon become captains themselves.

thus, I will be stuck in a perpetual state of seniority limbo, constantly moving up 10 or 12 spaces one month, and, as more senior First Officers get their captain calls, ill be knocked back down 10-12 spaces next month. it will be a long time before i really get anywhere

in the airline business, seniority is everything. It determines what base you get, what airplane you train on, what days off & what vacation you get etc. i fear i will be locking myself into a bad position if i make the jump

2017 was brutal for me. I left home on January 7th, and did not return until April 24th. I spend one night at home before being redeployed for another assignment on April 25th. I was gone for a month before spending 4 nights at home and being redeployed for another assignment running June, July and August. during that three month stretch i returned home for 8 cumulative days. At the end of August i was redeployed to another city where i spent an additional two months before being released for the winter. all total, we are talking about 12 cumulative days home over a span of about 298 days.

Most of those days were spent driving house to house, 5-7 houses per day, inspection after inspection 6 days a week on average 98 work hours a week.

grueling

between fuel, hotel and rv park related costs i parted with about $19,000. throw in my federal income tax at around $30,000, and misc expenses. Traveling for work is not only exhausting, and taxing on the family life... but financially speaking it is a costly affair.

taking the job will cost me a substantial pay cut... but i wont be paying near as much tax, and all of my hotel costs would be covered and i will be home 2-3 nights per week which is important.

I'll basically be jumping in coach on an airliner at the start of every work week, leaving Dallas for Chicago or New York. Sitting standby at the airport for 4 or 5 days, board a plane and head back to Dallas for my "weekend". while that might be exciting at first, im sure the honeymoon period will wear off rather quickly. Especially after I have to use up 1/2 of a day off to travel to New York because i have to be at work at 4am on my "Monday". but while im there... i get to play with jets. which is cool. and perhaps most importantly, under the current contract, American Airlines draws approximately 50% of its new hire pilots from the airline i've got the offer from... which means in perhaps 7-10 years time i'll be - supposedly - guaranteed a call up to AA.

I'm at an absolute loss as to what i should do. I have a darned good gig right now. i'd hate to run back to my first love only to regret that before long, but you miss 100% of the shots you dont take.

choices choices

[Jimbuna]

Discuss with the wife and family John and do what is best for you and them.

On the plus side at least you have a choice and whichever option you end up choosing will bring sufficient financial security.

One reason I retired as a LEO at age fifty was because I was financially secure and still in good health.....take what bonuses life offers you and make the most of it.

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

but you miss 100% of the shots you dont take.

And regret missing the ones you do take.

I have no other advice, other than try to negotiate some seniority thrown into your deal.

Do what's best for you and yours.


You buy that plane yet?

[Mr Quatro]

It is a tough decision ... do what's right for your family

Lord give him wisdom

[Aktungbby]

thus, I will be stuck in a perpetual state of seniority limbo, constantly moving up 10 or 12 spaces one month, and, as more senior First Officers get their captain calls, ill be knocked back down 10-12 spaces next month. it will be a long time before i really get anywhere

Several of my ROTC Air Force compadres (how we avoided the VietNam draft in the 60'-early 70's) did their ten years military service as flight instructors at Texas airbases and then flew for the airlines. One , my best friend-still living , flew for 'Lame Duck', Atlantic, then Northwest,(Hq'd in MPLS) and then Delta as these airlines all got bought up in succession...as a result he was never on the primary seniority list and was a first officer for years 'till I pointed out he needed to captain anything to improve his retirement which he (promptly and amazingly did) and he took retirement at age 60 from Delta. It strikes me you are exchanging one 'rat-race' for another and as you are a depreciable asset in your late thirties(38) carefully weighing family time against a potential 22 year career or whichever will give you the best retirement. Both jobs keep u away from home so it's really strictly a purely logical matter of overall income and retirement by your sixties... which strangely comes in the 'blink of an eye'.... IMHO: make as much as you can for 22 years (really the 'back half' of your remaining work life) and plan on making it to your eighties; you'll need every dime!

[Mr Quatro]

Golden Rivet's
Date of Birth
March 23, 1979 (38)

http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2016/0...ing-wages.html

With more than 30,000 airline captains rapidly approaching the mandatory retirement age of 65, and with an insufficient pool of young pilots lurking around ready to replace them, the largest U.S. airlines will start feeling the shortage in as little as three years, Bloomberg News reported this week, citing a study by the University of North Dakota’s Aviation Department.

If the trend doesn’t change quickly, in just 10 years we’ll be 15,000 pilots short of the number needed to sustain current travel routes.

http://www.aviationpros.com/press_re...ment-at-age-60

March 15, 2007--The Allied Pilots Association (APA), representing the 12,000 pilots of American Airlines (NYSE:AMR), released the results of two recently conducted polls that demonstrate strong continuing support for maintaining mandatory retirement at age 60 for the nation's commercial pilots.

[Aktungbby]

Precisely! my calculation: 60 - 38 = 22 and most of the pilots I knew or know (or long-haul truckers like myself) don't make it to retirement physically, so my use of expression: 'depreciable asset' falls coldly into line here. Throwing in fewer moving parts (mechanical aircraft and mechanics), crumby passengers, Union politics, international terrorists etc. to the conundrum equation:...

I have a darned good gig right now. i'd hate to run back to my first love only to regret that before long, but you miss 100% of the shots you dont take.

and I'd just stay on the ground!

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

You buy that plane yet?

to answer this question, not yet i have not, i found a few candidates over the holidays but passed on each for one reason or another (engine needs overhaul, extreme airframe total time, in bad need of updated avionics etc).

It was flying in the mean time with friends both in and out of the airline business that has piqued my interest in returning to the airline world. When these companies were advertising six month upgrades to captains i understood that there was so much movement in the industry that upgrade times were now just ridiculously short. as i've explained, thats just not the case. they are upgrading new hires who qualify immediately to slap a band-aid on a staffing problem and every single guy now on property will be upgrading on top of me on the seniority list, keeping me very near the bottom of the list through some estimated 1200-1300 upgrades. at perhaps 40 a month, you do the math as to how long i'll be bent over in the barrell

I have spoken at length with my wife and friends on the subject. The consensus is much as Aktungbby pointed out... at this point i need to be focusing on paying off my house and building a solid retirement moving forward. not playing airline pilot in the northeast

I have sat reserve for several months before, and i was in my home base with a 90 minute drive to the airport and it was a purely miserable hell and i hated every single minute of it. I cannot imagine having three days a week off and being forced to use half of the first day off commuting home, and half of the third day off commuting to work for as much as 2 years.

and even if i did get the crew base i wanted, what happens when that FO in Chicago gets forced into a captain seat in my crew base and equipment? well... i get displaced to whatever base my seniority allows me to hold, which would be anywhere else but where i want to be.

with my income as it is now at my current job... i wouldn't sit reserve at an undesired crew base even if they offered me $100,000 sign on bonus!

i have decided to pass on the job offer.

I may put my feelers out to see what other companies are offering. Though i imagine they are all in a similar position. but in the mean time, I'll soon be called up any day now to hit the road for several months straight, and i guess ill just see my family when i see them.

[Onkel Neal]

Interesting dilemma, too bad the pilot role doesn't pay better. But with a shortage, pay is bound to go up. I am dealing with the same thing, the shortage of truck drivers is really being felt now. I had a driver quit for a better paying job and HR was unable to send me a single candidate for over 8 days. The only solution is for pay to go up and increase the attractiveness of the job.

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

I had a driver quit for a better paying job and HR was unable to send me a single candidate for over 8 days. The only solution is for pay to go up and increase the attractiveness of the job.

increase the attractiveness of the job

[Aktungbby]

^ THAT'S WHY THEY CALL IT A "OLD TRUCKERS NEVER DIE ; THEY JUST GET THEIR PETERBILT!"

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

One reason I retired as a LEO at age fifty was because I was financially secure and still in good health.....take what bonuses life offers you and make the most of it.

"The most important duty of ours is to be happy in this life." (D.H. Lawrence, in these or quite similiar wordss).

Because whatever monuments of ourselves we build in life - time will sweep them away sooner or later.

I know nothing about the pilot business, but I saw documentaries about it on TV, and they painted a very gloomy picture. The young ones entering training have to pay for it all by themselves at Lufthansa, leaving them with debts between 150 and 200 thousands at the end. They then need to collect flight hours, and many accept to not get paid but to pay the airline for getting allowance to fly, because over here they will lose their license if they do not show up with so and so many flying hours per years. And in Germany, they then count - before the (social) law - as "unemployed without job training" Many accept to get treated like flying slaves by airlines in the cheap-flyer-segment of the market. And when they get a sorted employment, they then need long time to get rid of their monumental debts.

It is no dream job, it seems. Not at all.

Much of the pilot strikes at Lufthansa in recent years, which did not end and did not end, was about this problem, and the problem of if your health detoriates such that you are not allowed by the doctor to fly, you again end up stranded as an unemployed and without any formally/legally recognised job training/education. Legally, pilots in Germany are extremely handicapped and left behind.

It reminded me of the situation many students at British, french and American universities, who leave universities with so high debts that they are extremely vulnerable for gettign totally exploited by the job market and cannot find a chance to breathe and think just in their monthly struggle to get themsleves and their debts financed, somehow. There was a heart-breaking documentary on it on TV some months ago, I think I posted about it back then.

Whenever I hear such things, I know how gentle life so far has dealt with me, and how much luck I have had.

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by Skybird

"The most important duty of ours is to be happy in this life." (D.H. Lawrence, in these or quite similiar wordss).

this is very true. I am happy in my current job for the most part, i like to road trip in my RV, which i get to do a lot of obviously. I enjoy being able to help people, and i get paid really well in the process. the downside is it is a lonely life. I cant drag the family along, and even if i could my productivity would suffer. Its not out of the question to be the only guy assigned to a project so if you have an opportunity to hit the local bar for a couple of cold ones after work, your doing it solo. With a 14 hour day you have little time to get to know your RV park neighbors, i often find myself doing paperwork until 11pm, and work defines every moment of my life through about 80% of the year. but the stretch of off time to do whatever i want from November to the end of February is kinda nice

Originally Posted by Skybird

I know nothing about the pilot business, but I saw documentaries about it on TV, and they painted a very gloomy picture. The young ones entering training have to pay for it all by themselves at Lufthansa, leaving them with debts between 150 and 200 thousands at the end. They then need to collect flight hours, and many accept to not get paid but to pay the airline for getting allowance to fly, because over here they will lose their license if they do not show up with so and so many flying hours per years. And in Germany, they then count - before the (social) law - as "unemployed without job training" Many accept to get treated like flying slaves by airlines in the cheap-flyer-segment of the market. And when they get a sorted employment, they then need long time to get rid of their monumental debts.

It is no dream job, it seems. Not at all.

this is largely true in the US as well, you can go to one of these 2 - 4 year universities and learn to fly and get a degree in aerospace. but whats that good for if your aviation career doesnt work out? the cost of these schools can be as much as a new home. or more.

Much of the attraction of the job is being an AA captain or a FedEx Captain making $250,000 a year on the upper end, $180,000 a year on the lower end. but it takes a lot of strategy, planning, and patience to get there. Somewhere there is a lot of luck, being in the right place at the right time and having the planets align and being born under a lucky star as well.

there are a lot of things that can force you out of the business long before mandatory retirement. If i become diabetic for example... well i can still do my current job, but im OUT as an airline pilot. so that 52 year old guy who has been flying since he was 19, its all he knows, now he has atrial fibrillation bouts... done. congratulations, you get to hurry to start over in a new career at 52 and your daughter is in her 3rd year of college, and your house is 18 months from paid off... now what?

a "pilot shortage" has been forecast for many years, word wide. and especially in the US. though im not sure the current situation is the result of a shortage because it seems like the result of mismanagement of personnel. Once i completed my research into the company and asked questions, they need captains badly right now, hundreds of them. but thats only because they have so few first officers hitting their minimum hours to qualify.

so hire in a guy like me. Sit captain as a bandaid on the problem just to keep a seat filled, and when the first officer who has been with the company for 2 years before me meets his hours... he gets my seat.

what i got out of the deal was $45,000 cash bonus and a $60,000 a year salary

ummm no thanks. i can go hit one good hail storm for 6 or 7 weeks and bank that same $45,000. solid pass. especially if i am going to have to sit airport standby 8 hours a day in New York waiting for the phone to ring. no

Originally Posted by Skybird

It reminded me of the situation many students at British, french and American universities, who leave universities with so high debts that they are extremely vulnerable for gettign totally exploited by the job market and cannot find a chance to breathe and think just in their monthly struggle to get themsleves and their debts financed, somehow.

you're right, its not just aviation industry either, its across the board... as Mike Rowe says

"we are loaning money we dont have, to kids who cant pay it back to give them educations they cant use."

[GoldenRivet]

In addendum:

i think a far more beneficial and constructive use of my skills as a pilot would be to purchase my own airplane and participate in a program similar to angel flight.

if you are unfamiliar with angel flight, the program has a schedule board online and families who need to travel to specialist care with children (or adults) who suffer from medical conditions, burns, cancer etc who cannot afford the expense of airline flight to the city in which their specialist operates can book a trip with you. All you have to do is volunteer your aircraft and your time and skill as a pilot to transport them at no expense to wherever it is they need to go.

i think i would greatly enjoy doing that, and i could afford to make perhaps a dozen or more such trips throughout the off season. Helping people + getting to fly + i get to keep my day job = win win situation

the problem is one of procurement of an airplane. finding one that not only looks the part (is not a dog as far as ragged paint and interior) but is a reliable and capable machine (engine is not timed out or has other immediate and urgent maintenance needs) and can accommodate the child and at least one parent and any baggage. so instantly there would be a 4 seat requirement. an aircraft that fits that bill... even a 40 year old air-frame with minimal equipment can run $80,000-100,000

could i finance it? sure, but that will saddle me with a substantial monthly debt, on top of insurance, fuel, hangar costs and maintenance costs. and i can currently rent a plane for weekend warrior stuff. renting a plane for angel flight missions is out of the question however... because a 4 to 6 hour trip at an average of $125 an hour would have almost covered the monthly cost of owning the plane.

thats why i was attempting to be a cash buyer. But finding a $25,000-$35,000 airplane to pay cash for is much more realistic than finding one and paying $80,000-100,000 cash for it!

the good news is, My wife's vehicle is within 6 months of being paid off... so even if i paid down 50% toward the hull and financed the rest, the monthly payment would not be that high.

bottom line is, i dont want to finance if i dont have to.

last time i purchased an airplane it took me about a year to find exactly what i was looking for and a couple of weeks to close on it. so again... its a patience game

[Skybird]

Good luck to you. If I read it right, you are one year older than I am, which makes us of the same age group. And I would hate to need making decisions again like I did at 30 and like you need to do again now with 52. It sucks. Really, good luck to you.