My name is Elizabeth, I am 15 years old and want to become a pilot who lives in NYC. In an ideal world i’d be based there as well, but i’m sure I won’t be so lucky at first. I don’t mind commuting, but do I have to pay for the flights I take to get to my work on time? Or does the Airport pay for my travel expenses?
What does being on reserve mean? Will airlines give me a fixed schedule, or will they only give me a moments notice before I have to work?
How do I get all my work days in one chunk? Is that possible?
I’ve found so many answers online I just don’t know what to believe, how much can a beginner pilot expect to make their first year at a regional airline? How much the second year? How long do I have to be at a regional airline before I can apply to a bigger airline?
What are bids? I’ve heard that you ‘bid’ on where you want to be based, and pilots with seniority get top spot, but what does that mean exactly?
Here is my plan, I know it’s laughably optimistic, but then so am I. I go to college without a loan, pay it off as I go. Then I take out a 51,000 dollar loan for flight school. After flight school and after I amass the necessary number of hours, I apply to a regional airline, wherever my sister lives. ( I asked her about this she said she doesn’t mind) And for the first year of being a pilot I completely mooch off her, don’t spend any of my income and at the end of the year I use my wages to pay off, or mostly pay off depending on the airlines salary, my student loans. After that I’ll be free to get my own place, work for a few years, pay off my sister, and eventually move to NYC, hopefully before i’m thirty five.
I want to live in New York when I’m young. I want to have enough money to do what I want, I want to live in a relatively nice place and be able to afford to go out to eat every now and again, is this completely unachievable for someone younger than forty in the pilots profession? Because I’m more concerned on how I spend my thirties than I do my forties. I want to have fun when I’m young, and that’s one of the big appeals of being a commercial pilot. Is that enough though? Is it enough to want to do it for reasons other than loving flying? I’m sure I would love being a pilot, but right now I just want to set myself up for later life.
I really want everything to work out, but in my experience what you get isn’t to par with what you want.
And then the most important question.
Do you enjoy it? Is flying enjoyable, or is it convoluted, difficult, stressful and boring?
Don’t lie about this one to encourage me, if I am going to spend a big chunk of my life working towards this, I want to know if its worth it. If you have to, be brutally honest.
Thank you very much for reading.