The Fading of the Luster

It’s been a bad week. Bear with me while I vent.

Being an airline pilot used to be the top of the career ladder in aviation. Airline Captains were highly paid, thoroughly professional technicians whose skills and income were commensurate with their level of responsibility. Thanks to the new world in which we live, I’m not sure whether an airline career is really the pinnacle of aviation any more. There have been so many changes in my job in the past five years that I scarcely remember the way it used to be. Airline pilots, as a whole, are still very professional in the way we fly. We still care very much about our passenger’s safety and comfort. We still follow our Standard Operating Procedures. We still strive for on-time departures and smooth rides for our passengers. It’s just that now, there’s an underlying bitterness about the career. We look back on the way things used to be, and we sense our inability to ever return there. Our once-powerful unions are powerless to change anything. They’re even powerless to negotiate contracts with the company anymore, since corporate bankruptcy laws allow a bankrupt company to simply dictate the terms under which we will work, like it or lump it. Over half of the major airlines in this country are in Chapter 11 as I write this, and they are utilizing their force majeur clauses to the hilt, to the extreme detriment of employees. It’s a disgraceful situation.

There are days when I want to walk out of the cockpit at the end of a trip and never come back. Other days, when I’m zipping along at 550 knots groundspeed in the bright sunshine and rarified air of FL430, and admiring the magnificent view of a fully-developed thunderstorm as we pass by, or looking at thousands of square miles of western scenery in one glance, I want nothing but to stay up there and enjoy the sight for the rest of my career.

While that kind of experience is still special and awe-inspiring, I find myself thinking that it isn’t adequate compensation for the loss of career stability, 60% pay cut, loss of my pension, loss of all of my company stock (and inability to write off this loss on my taxes), position "bumps," sitting reserve, inability to upgrade, and utter career malaise that I’ve experienced. Not to mention the lack of sleep, circadian arrhythmia, poor nutrition, lack of exercise, and stress issues caused by 2:00 AM wakeups, all-nighters, short layovers, being surrounded by bitter coworkers, etc., etc.

The only things that rejuvenate me and make me feel alive are my personal relationships, my hobbies, side businesses, and flying General Aviation airplanes and warbirds. I want nothing less than a career – an existence – that motivates and inspires me much of the time, not just a few times a year at FL430. Is that too much to ask?

I have a joyous and lofty lifestyle goal in mind, and I mentally refer to it often. I’ll share it with you here someday. For now, I am slowly reprogramming myself to think of myself as capable of leaving this career that I worked so hard to attain. It’s a tough process. I am so ingrained into the world of flying airplanes for a living that I have trouble imagining doing anything else as my primary career. I know I could be wildly successful doing other things, but replacing the “pilot” self-image with anything else requires a lot of mental squirming. No matter what else I do, I’ll always be deeply involved in airplanes, and I’ll always fly. I just may not do it professionally. Come to think of it, that could be a very good thing.

More to come.