Originally Posted by
GagaPilot
In all fairness, I think most pilots (including myself) are chasing a childhood dream. The glory days of being a pilot are long gone. I had countless mainline pilots tell me growing up to pursue another career. And now at 31, with 34 years left at current legislative rules, I would tell other kids the exact same. Stay away. Fly for a hobby, and find a career that can support your hobby, and keep you closer to home. On the flip side, company management has become greedy, and the FAA’s “attempt” at scheduling safety with part 117 is a complete joke. Fatigue is real, and the bean counters don’t see it. That’s my feeling with dispatchers and schedulers as well - they are extremely under qualified to be making many of the operational decisions they are. No fault of their own - they are just not the ones in the flight deck - and have minimal training and insight into the operation.
Everything is relative. Funny part is I have several USAF friends who have left active duty in the last year (including 4 picked up by Delta in the last few months) who are leaving the military pilot life for the stability of the airline world. After numerous deployments, countless trips for training and exercises, assignments that pull them away from flying or send them to undesirable locations (or even remote assignments that take them away from their family for a year), having to play what they feel as games for promotion in an up-or-out system, moving every 2-4 years, extra duties that add to already long days, among other things, they see the airline lifestyle as a reprieve. I guess time will tell for each of them whether they really view the grass as greener or more stable.