Pathetic Pilot Salaries

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in
.net:


"Vic" wrote in message
m...
Hi,

I am a 35 year old software programmer thinking about a possible
career change into aviation. I am currently working on my PPL.
I've come to know some pilots who are currently flying for ASA and
Comair. Both of them made UNDER 17,000.00 last year. They are both
young guys without families, homes,etc.. so it's a bit easier for
them to ride this through. Anyhow, since I haven't made up my mind
yet, I would love to hear from any of you who have been in a similar
situation. Especially if you are around my age, made the switch from
a previous career, are married, have children and a mortgage. You get
my point. How do you pay continue to pay the bills? I will obviously
take a huge hit salary speaking, but I was shocked at how low the
starting salaries are!! With my wife, children and mortgage, I could
qualify for food stamps on that kind of pay. Also, since that would
put my family below the poverty level, would I even have to pay
income tax? Not to mention I will also have to make payments on
student loans if I choose to go ahead with this.

My CFI tells me to avoid the regionals at all costs. He suggests
flying corporate, but after some research the starting salaries for a
corporate pilot seem to be just as low. He also said that in a few
years there will be a pilot shortage. If there is a pilot shortage in
3-5 years, what does this actually mean for newly rated commercial
pilots who are looking for their first job? If anyone has any
thoughts I would love to hear them. Thanks in advance!

Vic

Salaries will always be low in an occupation considered to be
glamorous.

Mike
MU-2



I disagree... Salaries will always be low in an occupation that is so
much fun, most of the participants would do it for free......

--
ET


"A common mistake people make when trying to design something
completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
fools."---- Douglas Adams

"user" wrote in message

Unfortunately, that's unusual. My experience is that most developers
stop learning at about age 30. From that point on, they stagnate and
die. I can't count the number of times I've interviewed people,
asked them to tell me about an article/book/etc discussing current
technology and IT issues.... and find they haven't cracked a book
since college.

Hehe. I didn't go BACK to college (to learn Cisco CCNA and brush up on
UNIX, and commercial flight school) until I was 35.

-c

"gatt" wrote:
Salaries will always be low in an occupation considered to be
glamorous.

The people paying the salaries, and the pilots earning them, ought to know
better. Salaries should always be high in an occupation considered (by
the
general public) to be dangerous.

Should? Maybe so, but simple supply and demand is setting pilot salaries.
Mike is right: as long as there are plenty of people willing to accept the
joy of flying and the prestige of being a pilot as part of their
compensation, salaries will be correspondingly depressed.

The only reasons some senior U. S. airline pilots are making $200k/year now
are regulation and unions. Regulation is mostly gone and the wide open
market is destroying the unionized carriers. The $200K left-seater is a
fading anachronism.

Unless there is an industry-wide revival of the union movement, watch for
salaries to continue to decline for all pilots. It will be interesting to
see where pay bottoms out, and what the general quality of Part 121 pilots
will be when it does.
--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM

Paul Tomblin opined

In a previous article, (Vic) said:
I've come to know some pilots who are currently flying for ASA and
Comair. Both of them made UNDER 17,000.00 last year. They are both

You know what they say: the only way to make a small fortune in aviation
is to start with a large one.

And know when to stop.


-ash
Cthulhu for President!
Why vote for a lesser evil?

May I suggest that you take your hiring blinders off?

I didn't even BECOME a developer until I was 38.

I didn't even finish junior college (I got hired after 1-1/2 years)

I am a damned good developer - MS Visual Basic, MS SQL Server, MS Visual
InterDev, NT/2000 Server, TCP/IP, Active Directory, DNS, DHCP. And I taught
myself all of these. I read a couple of chapters in a book on TCP/IP, and
another couple of chapters in a book on DNS. Otherwise, I learned it all
from MS helpfiles and MSDN.

I "skim" a few articles and magazines to find out what the new technologies
are, but I usually learn them without the aid of books are courses.

So, while I'm learning new technologies by non-traditional means, you are
interviewing people in a traditional, hidebound manner.

So who's out of step with current technologies and methodologies?




"user" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 14:04:29 +0000 (UTC), Paul Tomblin
wrote:
In a previous article, "William W. Plummer"
said:
user wrote:

snip
Personally, I prefer working in IT, where the surest way to get
a huge pay increase is simply to threaten to quit. ;-)

Threatening to quit works until you are about 35 years old. Maybe a bit
longer if you walk on water. But later in life you can expect to be
pushed out in favor of younger, technology-current engineers.

There is no hard and fast rule that says you can't stay
technology-current
as you age. I started off doing FORTRAN on mainframes, went to C and
Unix, then C++ and Unix, and here I am at 44 doing Java on Linux, making
50% more than I was making when I was 35. And every step up the ladder
was done by identifying what I wanted to do next and teaching myself.


Unfortunately, that's unusual. My experience is that most developers
stop learning at about age 30. From that point on, they stagnate and
die. I can't count the number of times I've interviewed people,
asked them to tell me about an article/book/etc discussing current
technology and IT issues.... and find they haven't cracked a book
since college.

What's the next technology trend? I don't know, but I'm damn sure I'm
going to teach it to myself before Java on Linux jobs dry up. Although
I
have a nagging suspicion that my next "technology" will be "how to
manage
a team of programmers in India to make sure that what they produce isn't
a
giant cluster **** like every other outsourcing project I've seen".


Oh, but it worked so WELL at GC.....

- Rich

Professional piloting is not dangerous and I doubt that the public percieves
it to be so, but even if it were, if you have more people wanting to be
pilots because it is percieved as glamorous, then salaries will be lower.

Mike
MU-2


"gatt" wrote in message
...

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
news:zRHXc.126

Salaries will always be low in an occupation considered to be glamorous.

The people paying the salaries, and the pilots earning them, ought to know
better. Salaries should always be high in an occupation considered (by
the
general public) to be dangerous.

-c

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...

"gatt" wrote:
Salaries will always be low in an occupation considered to be
glamorous.

The people paying the salaries, and the pilots earning them, ought to
know
better. Salaries should always be high in an occupation considered (by
the
general public) to be dangerous.

Should? Maybe so, but simple supply and demand is setting pilot salaries.
Mike is right: as long as there are plenty of people willing to accept the
joy of flying and the prestige of being a pilot as part of their
compensation, salaries will be correspondingly depressed.

The only reasons some senior U. S. airline pilots are making $200k/year
now
are regulation and unions. Regulation is mostly gone and the wide open
market is destroying the unionized carriers. The $200K left-seater is a
fading anachronism.

Unless there is an industry-wide revival of the union movement, watch for
salaries to continue to decline for all pilots. It will be interesting to
see where pay bottoms out, and what the general quality of Part 121 pilots
will be when it does.
--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM


Additionally the $200k is somewhat of a farce because the pensions are so
underfunded. There is a recent newspaper article on the United
restructuring saying that many of the pilots recieving $175K a year in
retirement may be getting $28K from now on.

Mike
MU-2

"ET" wrote in message
...
"Mike Rapoport" wrote in
.net:


"Vic" wrote in message
m...
Hi,

I am a 35 year old software programmer thinking about a possible
career change into aviation. I am currently working on my PPL.
I've come to know some pilots who are currently flying for ASA and
Comair. Both of them made UNDER 17,000.00 last year. They are both
young guys without families, homes,etc.. so it's a bit easier for
them to ride this through. Anyhow, since I haven't made up my mind
yet, I would love to hear from any of you who have been in a similar
situation. Especially if you are around my age, made the switch from
a previous career, are married, have children and a mortgage. You get
my point. How do you pay continue to pay the bills? I will obviously
take a huge hit salary speaking, but I was shocked at how low the
starting salaries are!! With my wife, children and mortgage, I could
qualify for food stamps on that kind of pay. Also, since that would
put my family below the poverty level, would I even have to pay
income tax? Not to mention I will also have to make payments on
student loans if I choose to go ahead with this.

My CFI tells me to avoid the regionals at all costs. He suggests
flying corporate, but after some research the starting salaries for a
corporate pilot seem to be just as low. He also said that in a few
years there will be a pilot shortage. If there is a pilot shortage in
3-5 years, what does this actually mean for newly rated commercial
pilots who are looking for their first job? If anyone has any
thoughts I would love to hear them. Thanks in advance!

Vic

Salaries will always be low in an occupation considered to be
glamorous.

Mike
MU-2



I disagree... Salaries will always be low in an occupation that is so
much fun, most of the participants would do it for free......

I don't think that we are disagreeing.

Mike
MU-2

--
ET


"A common mistake people make when trying to design something
completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
fools."---- Douglas Adams

Amen to to that. I myself got out of IT because of the "sweat shop'
atmosphere it has turned out to be. I moved from the big city to a
small town with a NICE airport but little activity.

Switching gears at 35 is a 50/50 proposition, I cerainly woudn't
recommend it to someone who was sane and wanted to make a really
good living... Right now, as long as I can make enough money for
my plane and hangar rent I'm happy.

) "What me worry?"

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in news:t4KXc.288$w%
:


"ET" wrote in message
...
"Mike Rapoport" wrote in
.net:




Salaries will always be low in an occupation considered to be
glamorous.

Mike
MU-2



I disagree... Salaries will always be low in an occupation that is so
much fun, most of the participants would do it for free......

I don't think that we are disagreeing.

Mike
MU-2

--
ET



OK, we agree, just not on the reason :-)) although, now that I think
about it, that might be one component of the reason.....

--
ET


"A common mistake people make when trying to design something
completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
fools."---- Douglas Adams