Another mid-career 30-something contemplation post

Airline Pilot Questions & Answers
21

Mike,

Clearly you have some first hand knowledge of how volatile this industry can be. While the industry right now is prospering, that could all change tomorrow. I won’t bore you with my story but the short is I was 39, making excellent money as a restaurant owner, married with 3 young children. Problem for me was I was miserable and hated my job. While my family was well taken care of financially I was a crappy husband and a crappy father. Call it a midlife crisis but it was either get a young girlfriend and a Corvette or make some serious life changes. I opted for B, sold the restaurant and went all in. Fortunately it all worked out but it was no where near easy. Starting pay when I got hired was $18k, my wife thought I was crazy and irresponsible and threw me out. After upgrading 3yrs in a year later I was downgraded and had to take a 50% pay cut. Now I’m a Capt at a Major back making good money and I’m a better father and husband than I ever was. My only regret is I didn’t do it sooner.

What’s my point? I’m not sure I even have one other than to restate the obvious and that’s you have to do what’s best for you. In my case it wasn’t the thought of losing unearned backend dollars but literally my mental health was at stake. If things are currently good in your life and security for you and your family is priority one then by all means keep doing what you’re doing. I’m just saying for some there are other factors.

Adam

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22

No worries I completely get where you’re coming from. I wasn’t around for the lulls in the industry and as a result, I’m much less jaded. I’ve been EXTREMELY fortunate in my timing and I don’t ever take that for granted. On average, the people that I fly with have about 30 years in this industry so I’ve heard many stories about the history of our profession from people who experienced it firsthand. Furloughs and lack of flying jobs galore. You’re 100% right, anything could happen. Any day, in any profession. But I think if you were to hedge bets, now is definitely the moment to get in and take quick advantage. For decades this shortage has loomed, and it’s here. I’d rather catch the front wave than the back.

I also agree with Adam though and there is definitely a massive mental game involved. If you’re happy where you’re at and have different priorities, by all means please take your time. But for someone looking for max chance at serious financial/seniority/selfish QOL gains… I’d say catch the wave.

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23

Adam thanks for sharing your story, it’s tough to put that sort of personal information out there. I admire the drive for the end goal and the decision to go all-in. I’ve been struggling with my career the past two years. I am doing well financially and that conservative part of me is saying “that’s a great thing, don’t f’k it up, people are counting on you.” Maybe I’m rationalizing the long road to this change as a logical and conservative approach as a fear response, I don’t know. Sometimes I think I’m making sense in this thought process, then there’s those times like I posted about a few days ago where I have a moment of clarity that says “WTF are you waiting for, go for it!”

Einstein said something along the lines of “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I’ll tell ya, waking up each day thinking of ways to make my current job more enjoyable or looking for other jobs similar to the one I have now sure sounds a lot like insanity. So why aviation? Well, I know for sure that my dream job as a kid wasn’t sitting on my butt in front of a computer in a little office 8 hours a day, 5 days a week typing up reports and procedures.

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24

Jordan thanks for your thoughts. Clearly I’m waffling between what the appropriate path for me actually is. Instead of working today, I’m reading through my Gleim Instrument Pilot book, watching some M0a videos and chatting away on this forum. It took me 6 months to get my PPL part-time, ATP website says I can finish the accelerated program in 6 months to start flight instructing…

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25

Hey Jordan,

Yes you answered what I was looking for and thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agreed with you and if seniority is the rule that cannot be broken then let`s ride the waive at the front.

Mike,

Thanks for bringing up the “reality check” since it is something to think about. As yourself I have been thinking about becoming a pilot since I grew up close to an airport and it was magical seeing the planes landing. However, back them my parents told me not to follow aviation as a career because of all the bad reasons we know. Nevertheless, with this shortage the industry has or is changing (from what I have bee learning and researching which is a lot of hours), and I just do not want to be on my front porch being 75 and saying to my self " why I did not even tried to become one. Because If I had became a pilot and work in the industry and then after x years found out that I did not like it as much as I thought at least I will be happy I did tried.

Adam,

Do you still think plan A was better ? (hoping you get the humor from this) I am going through the same thing right now. My friends are in finance making lots of $$$ but are they really happy ? I am not and they are not for sure. My understanding is that life is as fragile and short as a porcelain doll.

Guys + girl. Thanks again for sharing all your thoughts since it has helped me to clean my vision more and more about becoming a pilot.

Luigi

26

Mike, your post describes perfectly what I went through the past couple of years before I started at ATP in September. I was a Civil Engineer, making good money but miserable with my job sitting at a desk, clicking away on a keyboard and pretending to love it. So I decided to get a different Civil Engineering job with the same result. Worked for a year at the new job and then got another new one hoping to be happier. It was staring to affect me mentally and my wife always complained that I was miserable more often than not. I was taking flying lessons a couple times a month while working but it was a very slow progress. Then I asked myself “When I am 65 and look back on my life, would I be happy with my current situation or be full of regrets for not doing anything about it?” Well, with the support of my wife I started ATP and couldn’t be happier so far. It does help that my wife has a good job and we have savings, so it might have been easier for me to make the jump than for others.

Anyways, decided to post just because I was in a very similar situation; sounds like you’ve thought about all your options and are making progress which is great :+1:t3:

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27

Samuil, thanks for sharing your story. It is encouraging to see others in my situation make big decisions to go all-in. My latest idea was to get into consulting as an independent contractor to get away from the corporate rat race that I thought (or more likely convinced myself) was the problem with my last two jobs. After 4 months of moderately successful consulting, I found myself applying back to the big company jobs because consulting wasn’t scratching the itch. During an interview, they asked me where I saw myself in 5 years…I hate that question to begin with and I had no real answer. So I said I’d probably like to try another part of the company’s operation outside of engineering. So yeah, that’s where I’m at right now. Good luck in your adventure!

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29

Wow Dmitriy, good job keeping positive! I’m originally from Bulgaria (a US citizen now so I haven’t had to jump through hoops like you), but I agree, let’s convert to metric already! Sounds like you should look into possibly switching flight schools, and definitely a refresher flight with a CFI a few days before the checkride. Good Luck!

32

Ok so I’ve decided to focus on the ways to make this happen instead of the reasons why it is not possible. I put in for some information at the ATP at CXO. There are a few other larger schools closer to home so I’ll check them out just to make sure all options have been explored. It’s a 150 mile round trip to CXO from my home but all highway. My understanding is that it is only 6 months give or take for PPL credit option. I have 90 hours and will have the cross country PIC time requirement met soon.Wife has an awesome job and we are not moving so it’s possible or likely I’d have to instruct at some other local schools and clubs after training if not able to instruct at CXO. Not a big deal, plenty of options in Houston. That’s the easy part…now the hard part is convincing my family I’m not crazy and the short term pain is worth the long term gain.

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33

Focus on the travel benefits they’ll all be getting :wink:

Adam

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34

That ship may have sailed, haha… I’ve told my wife stories of being bumped as non-rev when I had the Delta card. If I’m going to pitch that as a true benefit I need to do some more reading. I have no idea how it is nowadays. My dad jokes that he used to give his buddy passes to people he didn’t like.

35

Mike,

Buddy passes are less that useless (I call them Lose Your Buddy Passes) but employee and immediate family pass privileges are pretty awesome. Me and my family have literally seen the world for free or pretty darn close.

The key is being flexible.

Adam

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36

Thanks Adam, good to know! We enjoy traveling and we want to do more as the kids grow, especially Europe.

37

Okay, so what’s the skinny on Buddy Passes? What makes them useless?

38

Laura,

When it comes to any kind of “pass travel” it’s all about “boarding priority”. Boarding priority refers to the order which open seats are allocated. The priority varies with different work groups, family members, and other factors depending on the airline (within each group it then goes by seniority). Buddy passes are at the dead bottom in priority meaning the person who was your buddy before you ruined his life with said buddy pass, isn’t getting a seat until after the newhire baggage handlers mother’s cousin gets on.

You probably don’t recall but a few years ago there was this family stuck in, I think DEN?, for days over the holidays. They were camping out in the terminal and were on the National news bashing JetBlue. They were on buddy passes and you can bet the employee who gave them the passes was also in a world of trouble.

Adam

39

Mike,

Feel free to have your wife register for this website and join the discussion, we would be happy to talk with her as well and we won’t just sugar coat everything. Also, show your family the schedules section of this forum, although I would focus more on mine and Tory’s schedules as they are more normal than Adam’s.

Chris

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40

Family stuck at SLC Airport gets help from ABC 4 viewers - ABC4.com - Salt Lake City, Utah News

Reported by: Val Thompson
Contributor: Emily Clark
Contributor: Dan Metcalf Jr.

Video
Images

Family stuck at SLC Airport gets help from ABC 4 viewers

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - A family of four has been stranded in the Salt Lake City International Airport for the past five days.

Curtis Saxton, his wife, and his two children, ages 13 and 4, arrived at the airport on Wednesday night. They have been there ever since, waiting for a JetBlue flight that has enough room for them.

“We just sit and walk around and wait for our flights,” said Saxton.

The family is flying with buddy passes, which they get at a huge discount. But the passes do not guarantee them seats. They are only allowed to fly if there is room after all passengers and standby passengers have boarded the plane.

“We’ve been here for every flight, rolled over for every flight,” said Saxton. “We’re still at the bottom of that list.”

Their patience has run out and so has their money. Airport food is expensive, so they have been living on one meal a day.

“I have been hungry, hungry, hungry, hungry!” said Dominic, their four-year-old son. The lack of food is taking its toll on his system. He spent Sunday morning throwing up.

“It broke our heart when he was very sick this morning,” said Saxton. “He is normally so bright and energetic.”

All four of them are also exhausted. They are sleeping on short metal benches with very little padding. They are getting about two hours of sleep a night, and they say they have been denied pillows and blankets.

“There’s a lot of people walking by and staring at you and kind of laughing at you,” said Nicole Bennett, Saxton’s wife. “It doesn’t feel very good.”

The family has also been unable to shower since Wednesday.

“You feel gross,” said their 13-year-old daughter, Sadee. “It’s embarrassing.”

JetBlue told ABC4 that there is nothing they can do to get the family on a flight. The airline cannot give away seats that people have paid full price for, to accommodate the family.

Saxton says his relatives don’t have enough money to buy full price tickets to get his family back to Virginia. So the family will continue to wait at the airport, until a flight is empty enough to squeeze them on.

A manager with JetBlue says most of their flights this coming week are already full.

Saxton requested donations or any other assistance to help his family get home.
UPDATE (Monday, August 20):

A team of paramedics was called in to examine 4-year-old Dominic. He was given a clean bill of health.

An ABC 4 viewer purchased tickets for the Saxton family, allowing them to leave on Tuesday. Other viewers have offered free lodging, food, and other assistance.

Meanwhile, a Salt Lake International Airport official told ABC 4 that Saxton has refused lodging and food assistance vouchers.

ABC 4 has contacted Saxton, who said he did not need the food vouchers due to generous donors, and that he did not want to leave the airport for fear of losing a chance at standby seats.

Saxton said he would take his family to a motel Monday night and return for their scheduled flight Tuesday morning. The motel stay was donated by United Airlines.

Stay tuned to ABC 4 News and ABC4.com for updates on this story.

41

I tell people that I do not have buddy passes. They are a huge hassle for me, are taxed on their value to me as if it were income and the likelihood of getting on a flight is slim to none. Once you fly for an airline you will quickly learn that people think you walk around with a stack of tickets in your back pocket. It amazes me how brazen people are in asking for discounts, yet I do not ask them for discounts from their work places.

Chris

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42

That’s the one. I’m willing to bet a huge amount of money that was the last buddy pass that guy ever gave out!

Adam