"To get to the senior level, you must first have to be a junior pilot, which demands many years of hard work and sacrifice. To be in the position where your mom is at right now, she had to work really hard when she was younger. One advantage that your mom has that other pilots may not have is your dad also earns very good income. The pilot, who has a stay-at-home wife and is the only income earner in a household, has to work a lot more hours …..and has to fly more often to support his family."
You are absolutely right; before joining a major airline, when she wasn't married or had kids, she worked 6-7 days a week. She wanted to be in the air as much as possible to get the hour requirements to join a regional airline, working there for 2 years to join a major airline UPS. It took her 4-5 years before making it to the major airlines from when she started. Once you get to the majors, everything gets a lot better. All the pilots I know joke around how they worked so hard to get to the major airlines only to work significantly less but make significantly more now that they are with the majors. You are completely right, there are pilots with stay-at-home wives, and most of those pilots feel like they need to upgrade to captain to have a higher income (I would do the same thing). They won't necessarily work more hours because the maximum # of hours a pilot can fly is 100 hours per month (you get paid OT after 85 hours, I believe). But they will feel more pressure to upgrade to captain and put in overtime if they have a stay-at-home wife.
"I am pretty sure that the senior pilot positions are limited, especially at the “good” airline company. If it’s so easy, then everybody would become a senior pilot and there would be very few junior pilots out there. The senior pilots who have good benefits, good work hours (same day travel….say day home) and good salary compensations, will hang on to their jobs for a long time…..and makes it harder for the younger junior pilots to move up the ladder."
There isn't necessarily a limit to senior pilots. Once you join a major airline, you start to gain seniority, and as people retire (forced to retire), your seniority goes up. The pay is essentially based on a 12-year period. Your first year is your lowest pay, and then by the 12th year is around your maximum you will make. Your hourly rating depends on a couple of different factors, the plane you fly and whether you are a captain or a first officer. She is a first officer in her mid-late 50s and never chose to upgrade to captain (for a major). The hourly pay for upgrading to captian is decent. For the plane she flies & for being a first officer, she is ranked between 5-10/120ish. Whereas if she upgrades to captain, she gets bumped to 40/140ish (not sure of the exact rankings), but she won't have as good of flights if she's captain because her seniority goes down (less day trips).
"It’s the same for dentistry. In order for me to enjoy the current lifestyle that I have now, I had to work 6 days/wk when I was a new grad. Nothing is easy in life. There’s no such thing as easy money….or get rich quick."
Any high-paying job requires sacrifice, especially dentistry. When my dad first started his clinic, he worked for someone else 5 days a week and started building his practice on the weekends. Eventually went full time on his clinic (5 days a week), went to 4 days a week 20 years ago, switched to 3 days a week 10 years ago, and in the coming months 2 days a week (adding an associate). No matter what, you have to pay your dues; it doesn't matter what career you choose.
"For me personally, one thing I hate the most about vacation away from home is flying….I hate waiting at the airports….I hate flying. I don’t know how the pilots can do this every day for so many years."
I completely understand this, and a lot of people out there feel the same exact way as you. Or they have anxiety about flying, as people do about going to the dental office for a simple cleaning. That's where you need to have a
love and
passion for
aviation. My gf is obsessed with aviation; her favorite thing to do is go to the airport to watch airplanes land and take off (at least once a week). Whenever she sees an airplane in the sky, she instantly pulls out her phone to track it to see where it came from and where it's going to land. Her eyes light up the second she sees a plane. You really need a dying passion to become a pilot.
"If you think your mom’s job is better, then why do you decide to follow your dad’s footstep? I am just curious."
I don't think my mom has a better job than my dad, at least not for myself. I have done a few discovery flights before to see if I would enjoy flying, and I just didn't feel the calling that my mother or gf has for aviation. It is a really cool experience and I would recommend it to anyone interested, but I just didn't see myself enjoying it for the next 40+ years of my life.
A large reason why dentistry for me is because I love interacting with people, being around people, and helping them. I feel energized when I'm with people, and I have to be constantly moving - good ole ADHD (a reason why I could never do endo or sit in a cockpit for 9 hours). Additionally, I love the business aspect of dentistry and being able to create my own clinic. Forge it into a clinic I would have loved as a kid. I simply feel more of a calling toward dentistry over aviation. I think they are both great professions to go into. Both of them have difficult aspects to them, but all-in-all, if I'm doing a career that is able to support a family and I enjoy going to work most days, then that's enough for me.
