Midlife Career Change

[Invertago]

Except when they congratulate you on having the busiest month since 2019 and there has been no slow down, only a pay cut. If I were twiddling my thumbs with no work I'd understand having a pay cut, but when they're constantly asking us to come in on days off its a little hard to believe.

[iflyforpie]

Offering to work for free does several things:

1) It offends more sensible owners and their employees who’s livelihood is based on offering a service for price. They often have to deal with bottom feeding competition and chisel charters constantly trying to undercut them.

2) It shows that you don’t value yourself. If you don’t even value yourself, how much are you going to value their customers, their equipment, etc? How are they going to retain you? How are they going to know if you are even going to show up on a given day?

3) It kills connections. That’s what helps you out especially in times like this. Insider information, a reference, a referral, etc. Everyone wants to make a living and if you are one that is willing to work for nothing.. they don’t want you around at better companies willing to work for less.

4) You can get blacklisted. There are/were some companies that offered free or pay to fly positions and they have been ruthlessly drug in the mud across forums and the industry. Even an operator like Swoop there has been talk of it being a career-killer because the pilots there make far less than their WJ compatriots.

[iflyforpie]

Those who still have jobs are often seeing companies cutting wages and working conditions because now they can because they have a pile of over qualified candidates ready to take your spot... and they love to say "you should just be thankful you have a job"

If your employer hasn't taken this opportunity to screw you over, you are one of the lucky ones.

You have to understand the companies don't have enough income to keep you unless you take a pay cut. They aren't screwing you just because they are adjusting to COVID decimating the industry.

The revenue stream for my job wasn’t affected by COVID and I got a pay cut.

However, I got it back after a month and thankfully it’s remained at the pilot shortage levels.

[OneYonge]

Offering to work for free does several things:

1) It offends more sensible owners and their employees who’s livelihood is based on offering a service for price. They often have to deal with bottom feeding competition and chisel charters constantly trying to undercut them.

2) It shows that you don’t value yourself. If you don’t even value yourself, how much are you going to value their customers, their equipment, etc? How are they going to retain you? How are they going to know if you are even going to show up on a given day?

3) It kills connections. That’s what helps you out especially in times like this. Insider information, a reference, a referral, etc. Everyone wants to make a living and if you are one that is willing to work for nothing.. they don’t want you around at better companies willing to work for less.

4) You can get blacklisted. There are/were some companies that offered free or pay to fly positions and they have been ruthlessly drug in the mud across forums and the industry. Even an operator like Swoop there has been talk of it being a career-killer because the pilots there make far less than their WJ compatriots.

Thank you. I agree with you and I have not seen this laid out as you have done. This is something to think about. I have heard people say you cannot just expect to get paid. When starting out...you might have to accept getting paid less than minimum for a while. Or maybe not even at all.... You have to clean toilets etc etc , suck it up until you are deemed worthy to get paid to fly. If you try to get paid or get a better deal....then you are being..."entitled". I could be wrong, but this seems to be the more prominent way people see it.

[photofly]

Getting paid not-very-much to clean toilets is very different to piloting an airplane for free.

[ayseven]

In my prime days, the wages were almost free anyways. The cost of living exceeded the pay in many cases. Why do you think I got out of aviation?

[pelmet]

Found this in the comment section of an article I have been reading about pilots in the industry. You might want to choose your category first. You may overlap into more than one as I do......

I had a similar path and left the industry a few years after upgrading at SkyWest. This was in 2007 when oil was crushing the market. What I experienced was zero support from colleagues whenever an exit strategy was mentioned. People thought leaving that career was crazy, and treated me like a crab trying to escape the bucket. You might enjoy my dystopian list of archetypal personalities found at any airline:

1) Survivors: have to pay alimony, hate the job but need the paycheck
2) Dreamers: so in love with planes they will work under any condition as long as they can fly
3) Bennies: there for free travel and a nomad lifestyle
4) Weirdos: dysfunctional in team and/or social environments, but able to hide in the cockpit
5) Bus drivers: workaholics who are resigned to their lot in life, but love to complain loudly about the system
6) Cynics: waiting for an excuse to leave
7) Rare aviator: highly educated pilots who appreciate aviation's history

A surprisingly large number of airline pilots are ignorant about aeronautical engineering (e.g., ruddervators) or aviation related events

['97 Tercel]

Pretty accurate!

[OneYonge]

Getting paid not-very-much to clean toilets is very different to piloting an airplane for free.

There are people willing to do both and there might be some companies that do not mind this arrangement?