Many of us in the 50+ crowd who were lucky enough to be hired by a major carrier from day one have had a very positive experience that most of us wouldn’t change for the world, but I can’t imagine becoming a pilot today.
The cost of education and training, combined with the low pay for most who have to start with regional airlines, makes it easy to understand why there is a shortage of pilots, and, as you said, the amazing offers being made are not going to the newbies.
In my circle of pilot friends, most of us get at least two calls a week from foreign carriers looking for at least 10,000 hours on the jumbos, hoping we’ll jump ship, but none of us would ever give up our seniority which allows us to fly about 8 days a month for about the same compensation as what they’re offering. That, along with the other investments most of us have, would not make it worth it for us, and that is the problem these airlines are running into when they try to recruit experienced pilots.
It will be interesting to see how the airlines deal with this, and what the impact will be on travel going forward.
