Originally Posted by Mr Nice
$200,000 ?
I didn't know it was that expensive to become a commercial pilot.
I was going to say, "don't get me started"...but you've got me started, so...
It's about $200,000 to get your flight training up to an ATP. Can be more. Assuming that you are able to get through the program.
Then, you, too can become a regional airline first officer, a job that, until recently, paid $24,000/year while working 12+ hour days, getting no more than a few hours' sleep each night....
Oh the luxury! The glamour!
And if you work part-time at Starbucks on every one of your days off (which aren't many) you can double your income. I'm completely serious. Google the investigation into Colgan 3407. At the time of the crash, the FO had been awake for over 24 hours, after working at Starbucks and then commuting from Seattle to New York. She lived with her parents in Seattle, and worked at Starbucks, because her airline job didn't pay enough to cover her student loans. The public was shocked, shocked!, that pilots made so little and worked such long hours.
Why do you think there is a pilot shortage now?
Because for a decade, that's how airlines paid. Borrow $200K, then, if you're lucky, get a job that won't even pay your student loans, much less living expenses...
Things have changed, and there is a global demand for pilots right now, so pilots with experience are able to command decent salaries.
But you have to have the experience first.
And that costs both time and money. Lots and lots of time and money...
If the salary in the article, $300K is attractive to you, then, please, be my guest, and go get some flight training, build your hours, see if you can get a job flying airliners, build your time in them, and then see how you do working for one of those airlines.
I get hit up by recruiters on LinkedIn weekly asking if I want to work for one of those airlines.
Not a chance....
Horrible working conditions, years away from home, micromanagement, no ability to question the hierarchy of management on safety issues. Pilots that know only how to follow procedure, but don't actually know how an airplane flies. Those airlines have to up the salaries to a very high level to get any pilots at all. I've flown with quite a few pilots who once flew for Middle Eastern and Chinese airlines and every single one of them hated it.
One need only look at Asiana 214, in which a perfectly functioning 777 crashed on a sunny day, to see what's wrong with the cultures and managements at some airlines. Salary simply cannot make up for that.