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| quote: | Originally posted by djshan
I was called twice from two different companies. I turned down their offers. One wanted me to be a "volunteer"... the other one was not paying according to my needs (24 k). The reason Im instructing at 25/hr is for a few reasons. 1. I have my own work schedule. 2. It looks good on resume. 3. I have a passion to teach. 4. Im able to work other jobs on the side without any hassles from my boss. 5. And in addition to teaching, I get to build flight time (PIC). With instructing included with my other 2 businesses, i bring in $75,000/yr approximately. And i dont work on the ramp btw, that is not why i got a pilots license. 
I beleive there are alot of good pilots out there who deserve to get paid more. This job is not mickey mouse, its a hard and stressful job, but also fun at the same time. If there was a less supply of pilots, then it would be easy to turn down low paying jobs. Theres more pilots than the number of jobs, and airlines know that. It doesnt make difference to them if you say no to their low offer. The gas prices are high, airlines need to make $$... Since there are alot of pilots, what would you do if you were an airline and wanted to make money? And dont get me wrong, I dont hate airlines. Sometimes i want to blame the gas prices for all the mess.
Unforunately, we are forced to accept low salary jobs becuase we get to fly!! I am expecting to take a pay cut as i advance up the career ladder. The good thing is, that the salary goes up after some time. 
If i was harsh, I apoligize. but someones gotta so something. maybe its the fuel prices? |
djshan: There's one supremely important aspect that I don't think you've grasped here. You're entire pre-airline career is a race. It's a race to acquire the right skill set, contacts, and flight time to become an interview candidate for the airlines. This might sound silly, or over dramatic but if anything it's an understatement. Your ENTIRE airline career will be determined by the age you're hired at. It will determine when you get your captain's upgrade, it will determine how many years you're stuck working every weekend and every holiday. It will determine vacation, routes flown, and to an immense extent your career earnings.
So while I see your naive distaste for ramp jobs, they can provide you to a fast track for your airline career. I'll use my own life as an example. I too started out as an instructor, also one who turned up their nose at ramp work. One day after about 8 months of Instructing I talked to a friend in Pickle Lake. That friend I had discounted as being stupid for taking a ramp job 8 months prior when we both graduated school. After all, I was flying, and he was freezing his balls of loading freight. Well it turns out that in his first 6 weeks of flying after the 8 month wait, he'd already logged more time than I had in 8 months. Infact, nearly all the guys up in Pickle on the Caravan were doing 1200hrs in 11 months and timing out with a month left in the year. It took me about a month to get my head around that. A month later I was in my Toyota Corolla headed up highway 599 to Pickle Lake. I worked the ramp, and it opened doors to me that will take years more for you to open. To give you a sense of how much it sped things up. One of my class 1 instructors and assistant CFI's at the flight school I worked at had started there 4 years prior to my start at instructing. I arrived at Air Canada a few months before he did. There were 2 others who I instructed with there too that work at AC now. They had a 2 and 3 year jump on me instructing, and I arrived at AC a few months after the 2 year head start and 1 year after the 3 year head start.
All that said, the north just might not be right for you. I certainly saw my share of cream puff city boys come up and then leave a few weeks later. It's not an easy life up there, and that's precisely why it's a short cut. If it was easy everyone would do it, and there wouldn't be the same opportunities. I did eventually make it back down south. Prior to Air Canada I was a Check captain and sim instructor at Air Georgian. I also sat on the hiring board for some interviews there too. Again and again, I saw the same story repeated with the interview candidates and resumes there. The guys who were coming back down south from the north were about 2-3 years younger than people who had stayed down in toronto.
To give you an idea of how much money that equates to. You'd be lucky to make 25k/year instructing in the GTA. So 2 years at 25k = 50k earned. A senior 777 captain at Air Canada in the last 2-3 years of his 30 career is making about 240k/year. So 2 years at 240k/year = 480k - 50k instructing = 430k ahead. When the math is presented like that it's pretty sobering. You may think that you're taking the high road, but you're really just screwing yourself. That calculation doesn't take into account the accrued career earnings as you'd always been on higher paying types 2 years ahead of the other guy. In reality that figure could very realistically be closer to a million bucks over a career.
Anyway good luck with things. Your first 5-10 years in the industry are going to suck terribly. If you make it to the airlines you'll be handsomely rewarded for your suffering though.
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