Well Alonso, if aviation is your passion and dream you could always try for it. There is a pilot shortage right now, and very few young people are entering the business, Commercial Pilot Applications are down something like 50%.
I cant blame these guys for not coming into the airline field... its not what it used to be.
a lot of people are of the misguided idea that you serve a few years with a regional flying a CRJ and then the company lets you "move up" to fly the 737... but thats just not how it works.
these regionals are only painted like continental, and northwest and united, but they are in fact
totally different companies.If you want to fly for united airlines or for continental airlines you have to meet their requirements:
generally that equates to 1,000 hours as captain of a turbine powered aircraft. where in the heck are you going to get that kind of flight time??? well the regionals is generally the answer. but you have to have 1,000 hours of captain time, and it takes anywhere from 4 to 8 years just to get a captain seat.
Once you get the captain seat it will realistically take you about a year and ha lf to get 1,000 hours PIC time. then optimistically you submit a resume to southwest airlines only to find out that 'though you meet the minimum requirments for the airline,
competitive minimums are 4,000 hours PIC turbine time."
with rejection letter in hand you return to flying your CRJ as a captain for another 4 or 5 years before trying again. and in that 4 or 5 years were there any wars? how is the economy doing? where there any signifigant terror attacks? whats the cost of oil? did you lose your medical to diabetes or an unknown hear condition? Does the major airline you want to work for even NEED pilots right now? all of these questions have to be answered over the course of a decades time... because they ALL affect the chances of you getting hired.
all i know is
right now...
the average age of a new hire first officer at most regional airlines is about 24 years old from what i observe.
the average age of captains who get hired by places like United, Southwest, Continental etc (major airlines) is about 40 - 45 years old and have been working for the regional for that length of time.
the dilemma they face now: as 18+ year captains at the regional level they are on a very senior pay scale earning about $85,000 per year (with over time)...
...but when they take the job at the major airline, most majors start you out at 30K annually as a first officer.
not only have you taken a $55,000 pay cut, you have also surrendered 18 years of seniority. and it might take another 5- 10 years to upgrade to captain. then you have to consider mandatory age 65 retirement.
You now have to start all over from year one with United, or southwest for example. and you might only have 15 years until you HAVE to retire due to age 65... depending on the upgrade times at the airline you have chosen it is entirely possible you will retire as a first officer and not a captain (which is important to some folks)
for this reason, a lot of guys get "comfortable" at the regional level, and stay right where they are. this translates to little movement for you.
its very complicated, and there are a lot of factors which will affect the direction your career takes. and you typically dont know how your career has been directed until it already happens.
all of that said, i love my job and i get to do a lot of cool stuff, but like i said in an earlier post... getting to do cool things doesn't pay the bills.
you
could spend your off time delivering pizza, or doing some other part time exercise but in the end you only have a few hundred extra dollars to show for it... and all the free time you started with has been worked away, and trust me as an airline pilot on any level free time is
extremely valuable.
its true that there are a lot of things about the job i dont like.
take a CEO who makes $10,000,000 a year telling the workers they cost too much for example.
but... i couldnt imagine doing anything else.
School here ends on december and I have until october to decide...
