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Low Pay, Health Concerns and a Hellish Commute: One American Eagle Pilot Reveals Reasons He Walked Away

In a recent entry, former American Eagle pilot and vlogger, Jon Kotwicki, offered a look at the less glamorous side of being a commercial airline pilot and detailed how low pay, a punishing schedule, a hellish commute and eventual health concerns caused him to walk away from his dream career on the flight deck of a jetliner.

Former commercial airline pilot, certified flight instructor and prolific blogger, Jon Kotwicki worked for much of his adult life to fulfill a dream of working as a commercial airline pilot. In his latest YouTube channel vlog entry titled, “Why I Quit Being an Airline Pilot,” Kotwicki reveals why he walked away from that dream, quitting his job as a pilot for American Airlines subsidiary PSA, and why he is healthier, happier and earning a better living following his decision.

“Quite frankly, I mean, I did love the flying,” Kotwicki explains in his 16-minute-long video confessional. “I was always stoked and excited to go to work. It was just by leg four, leg five of day one, or say, leg four, leg five of day two or day three, you were kind of beat. If you are going to go do like 16 legs and only get credit for 18 hours on a trip – it’s kind of rough.”

The former pilot says he has at times been forced to delay flights, simply because his flight schedule didn’t afford him an opportunity to eat at any point during the workday. He said that a typical workday might involve flying five legs and being on duty for more than twelve hours, but often only being paid for half of that time.

Kotwicki explained that he frequently spent more time on the ground than in the air, typically flying routes that required less than an hour of flying time. After factoring in his unreimbursed travel expenses, the disenchanted former first officer estimates that some weeks he barely managed to bring home $600 before taxes and once his healthy signing bonus expired, he made less money at the airline in his second year at the company than he did in his rookie year.

“All that debt from back in flight training,” the pilot laments in the video. “So, seven years of flying, 4,000 hours of flight time, $100,000 in debt … You’ve got to pay your debt right? Do you need a kidney? What’s it going to take for me to make a good wage?”

Kotwicki says the toll on his health was one of the biggest factors in quitting his dream job, although he admits that his experience at a regional carrier might not be typical of the experience of others in his profession. He says that some colleagues seem to have an easier time of maintaining a heathy lifestyle under less than ideal circumstances, but he notes that many of his co-workers physically appeared retirement-age before turning 50-years-old. He speculated that the seemingly rapid aging was to do with a combination of job-related factors including stress, irregular sleep and nutrition habits and constant exposure to environmental hazards associated with life in the cockpit.

Airlines (especailly regional carriers) are sounding the alarm, warning that it is becoming nearly impossible to find qualified pilots. It looks as if at least one former airline pilot understands exactly why this is the case. For his part, Kotwicki says he has returned full-time to his former career as a flight instructor and occasionally takes on charter work as well. The end result, he says, has been better money and a healthier lifestyle.

[Photo: Shutterstock]

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strickerj September 18, 2018

I don’t understand why the airlines seem to think they’re exempt from the laws of economics. They’ve been complaining for years about the pilot shortage but refuse to raise wages. Is it any wonder American and European pilots are going to Asia and the Middle East where the airlines pay more?

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yanxfann September 17, 2018

The title calls the person in question an "...American Airlines Pilot" which I think is misleading. He was an American EAGLE pilot, not a mainline American AIRLINES pilot. You wouldn't compare the salary of a Triple-A baseball player to that of an MLB player, would you? He says he was making only $35 per flight hour working for Eagle, while the LOWEST paid first year new-hire First Officer ("copilot" to many) for mainline American Airlines makes $88 per flight hour, and a third year AA First Officer make between $156 and $192/hr (depending on their airframe).