For those of you who wish to start an airline career I have only one piece of advice to offer. The best way to become a professional pilot and be well paid is to GO TO MEDICAL SCHOOL AND BECOME A GYNECOLOGIST. I sincerely wish that someone would have gone back and given me a severe beating for ever wanting to become a professional aviator. I know one thing is for sure, and that is - the day my little son says “I wanna be a pilot like daddy” I’m going to slap him as if he had called his mother a dirty name.

     After paying gobs of money to become a professional pilot with loan after loan and days of sweating and cursing my way through rating after license choking down bowl after bowl of Ramen Noodles while reading oral exam guides and text books 10 times over I finally became a flight instructor. I was elated! The day had finally come that I had a flying job and I could turn this hobby into a career! Then, after starving my way up the food chain as a flight instructor, driving a piece of shit car, eating a steady diet of Mac and cheese and doing my best to keep the creditors at bay on a miserable $1400 a month my resume finally got a bite and an interview date was set. I was very happy to be at the interview and I knew that becoming a commuter airline pilot would be a stepping stone to a much larger more rewarding career as a major airline pilot, a place to pay my dues and head into the career objective I have been so steadily steaming toward for so long. I have finally been hired by a commuter airline, a goal towards which I have striven for several years.

     Now many of you may have heard the joke “what do you call a commuter airline pilot without a girlfriend? –Homeless!” well that’s pretty much true. Despite the fact that I’m moving “up” in the world as so many people have said I feel more like I’m moving sideways. The pay is substantially better than the $1400 a month I’m used to – in fact I’ll be able to sprinkle salt and pepper on my Mac and Cheese now at a whopping $1600 a month! A first officer can expect an upgrade time somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 years. By then Pay is just teasing you with that $2,000 a month mark. If I want more than $50-75,000 annually with this particular airline I’ll have to dig into the trenches and hang on for 15 years minimum. And I chose these guys because they were offering the best pay for the best location of the 3 other airlines that chose to interview me.

      To help illustrate my frustration I have developed two lists, one is the pay scales of a commuter airline pilot Versus other jobs, the other is a list of things I wish I were told when I was a student pilot starting out in aviation.

List 1: Pay based on reports from salary.com

Job (entry level)                        Monthly Income

Fast Food Shift Manager………………………….. $2,160
High School Cafeteria Cook…… …………….… $2,000
Hair Stylist…………………………………………………. $1,700
Commuter Airline Pilot……………………………… $1,600
Shoe Salesman………………………………………... $1,200

List 2: Things the flight school personnel told me VS. What they meant to tell me.

What they said:
     “The airline industry is showing an upward trend in hiring, pay scales for even some of the lower end jobs are upwards of 50-100K a year depending on the company you work for.”

What they meant to say:
     “…of course you will be 45 years old before they pay you that well and they wont even look at your resume unless you know someone on the inside or have duked it out building time in a crap flying job for 3 or 4 years.”

What they said:
     “Learning to fly really isn’t that expensive. It is cheaper here in the U.S. than most other nations. It’s cheaper and easier now that it ever has been”

What they meant to say:
     “…You might want to take out a loan and buy your mom and sis a pretty dress or two and stick them on the roadside for a while… oh and your first, second and third born – forget about it.” (what do they do in other nations?)

What they said:
              “You hear a lot of stories about guys who have been working for the airlines for 30 years and retire as a senior captain with a lot of cash in the bank for their retirement.”

What they meant to say:
              “…Working for the airlines… plural… since they have been furloughed or fired from 4 or 5 airlines that went bankrupt in that 30 years span.”

What they said:
               “The lifestyle is a lot of fun, you get to travel a lot and your not away from home all that much… your will only spend a hand full of nights away from home every month.”

What they meant to say:
               “… being away from home all those nights will get you used to being alone when you finalize that third divorce!”

So – if you are considering a career in aviation, like I said, the best way to go about it is to be a gynecologist and fly whenever the hell you want to, wherever the hell you want to. I have met three gynecologist-pilots in my life. One owns a late model C-90, one owns a new Piper Seneca V, and the other a Saratoga. All for digging around in old cracks!

Will I fly for such low income? Yeah you know I will, because I love to fly. But that’s the only reason – you have to love and be married to this industry even though it will treat you like an inner city mutt in return! Otherwise its not going to work for ya. Good luck all!

like any job, you gotta work your way through the ranks to get the big money. its just annoying that in aviation you first have to pay a ton to even get there. As for going to med school. While yes the  job prospects leaving med school can sometimes pay well. the average med student leaves college/university/med school upwards of $100,000's in debt.

Let me start off by saying this:  Don't get into aviation if you want to make millions right away.  Most pilots  go in and rent/buy a house to live in at their bases or what not.  also not sure on your airline but one rejional airline I know of you go from FO to Captain in 9 months on a beech 1900D, although there are a few guidlines to that.  the best way to get into aviation (as I was told by pilots) is go in single and without children so you have no one to owe other than creditors.  Aviation goes in waves and as you mentioned right now is a good (high) part but two days from now your airline or any airline may start putting pilots back on furlough.  The key is to never settle in when you are young I've heard many stories of pilots loosing jobs bacause they missed a day at work and the recruiters came and picked other people.

Those are just my feelings..
May I ask which commuter airline you work for?

And there's why I don't want to fly for an airline. I make as much now as I would for the first 5-10 years. Plus I'm not interested at all in flying heavy iron. I would love to fly light planes for a living, but I don't yet know in what capacity.

Who cares about income and all that nonsence. im gonna be a pilot and thats final and none of you are going to stop me  Grrrrrrrrrrr.....

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The bank cares. The guys who you owe money to on credit cards or loans care. They really couldn't give a rats backside if your doing the job because you love it, if your not earning the money to pay them, then you'll care. Dont wish to put a downer on it and i know the first post was more of a lighthearted joke but the sad fact is many pilots cant even afford to pay back their flight school loans.

And that's why I decided not to be a pilot and become an air traffic controller!     I have to admit... I agree with you!  ahaha

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Huh ???

I thought all ATCers were automated robots!....

BOT!