I am currently 25 and am contemplating changing careers and becoming a pilot. Before I make the leap, I have a handful of questions.
Health Insurance as a Flight Instructor – When working towards the 1500 hours, do flight instructor jobs offer health insurance, or, is the person left to find their own? My wife is ~1 year away from completing physical therapy school and I am trying to decide whether to wait until she is finished and begins working to start my training as we can get insurance through her job.
Can someone please outline the transition from First Officer to Captain for me? Does one start out as a first officer then become a Captain after a specific number of years?
After completing training through ATP, is it commonplace for people to be hired by ATP to work as a flight instructor, or are there other avenues to complete your 1500 hours?
Interview process – When can someone begin interviewing for regional jobs? If/when you are hired, do they determine your home base, or do you have a say?
In reading through the forum I am learning that airlines have a pretty strict tattoo policy. My wife and I have tattoos in place of a wedding band. Would it be as simple as covering it with a bandaid, or would this be a problem when looking for a job.
Welcome to the forum. Let’s get to your questions.
Most instructor positions are independent contractor positions and thus benefits are typically not offered. Many flight instructors chose to obtain health insurance through the public exchanges, i.e. “Obamacare”.
With very few exceptions, everybody starts out as a first officer. Everything in the airlines is based on the seniority system. Typically the airlines have bids several times per year where one can bid which base, equipment, and position (FO or Captain) they desire. When you have enough seniority to hold Captain, you can bid it and if there is a position open you will get it. This is a function of seniority and not of time. There will be times in your career when the airline is growing and people are able to upgrade quickly and times when the airline is stagnant and upgrading takes many years. Generally though, retirements drive upgrades and people are usually able to upgrade within a reasonable time. At the regionals this is governed more nay people leaving for other airlines than by retirements.
Many pilots chose to apply to ATP as a flight instructor and in turn, ATP hires many instructors. There are of course other avenues as well, such as flight instructing for another school, flying traffic watch, parachute jumpers, etc. By far the most common approach to building hours is via flight instructing. All of the mentors on this site were ATP instructors.
Many people interview with the regionals with as little time as 500 hours, but some wait until later. If you want to participate in Tuition Reimbursement, it is better to interview earlier: Tuition Reimbursement FAQs / ATP Flight School
Once you actually start class at the airlines, you will bid which base you want from the available bases the company has to offer. If your first choice is not available, you can continue to bid for it in the aforementioned bids.
Many of your questions are answered in much greater depth throughout the forum but here’s some quick and dirty:
Most flight instructor jobs do not offer health insurance and instructors are required to obtain their own.
EVERYTHING at the airlines is based on seniority and to make any move (upgrade, base, aircraft) there must be a vacant slot and you must have the seniority to hold it. Aside from the regulation that a pilot must have 1,000hrs SIC (second in command) 121 (airline experience) there is no time factor. You can bid Capt on day one. Once you have the 1,000hrs, if there’s a open slot and your seniority can hold it is yours. That could mean under 2yrs, could mean much longer.
ATP hires many successful students as instructors and many go elsewhere. Often one of the biggest factors is location. ATP may offer you a position but it might not be at the location you want. In that case many pilots will look for an instructor job elsewhere but closer to home. There are other low time jobs (banner tow, traffic watch, light cargo) but they’re often hard to come by.
Many Regional airlines will let you interview for a conditional position with as little as 500hrs. In many cases that’s contingent on you instructing on a partner school like ATP so they can monitor your progress. Whether you get the base you want or not really depends on the situation at the time you actually start. If there are alot of vacancies you’ll be able to bid for the base you want but if they only have slots at one base you’ll be assigned to it. In most cases, you’ll be able to move within a year or less.
Currently every airline in the US has a no visible tattoo policy. You will need to cover it.
Jared,
After graduating ATP and if your performance is recommended for a CFI position you’ll go in to a pool of other grads all waiting for an invite to indoc. You could take a first available location which would place you the fastest or wait for a more ideal location. You don’t have to work with atp, you’d be qualified to flight instruct at any local school you’d like but ATP has the benefit of tuition reimbursement programs that could be actively paying towards your loan so you don’t have to in such a small CFI income. Those tuition reimbursement programs are only available through being an ATP CFI. You can apply to those as early as 300 hours. You also would be an independent contractor so no health insurance but most buy their own just to bridge the 2 year gap before getting insurance at the regionals. Those that are married tend to use their spouses or younger students sometimes stay on their parents insurance until 26.
If you have any more questions or follow ups to anything we’ve discussed, please let us know! Glad to have you here on the forums.