Friday, August 17, 2012

About: still alive and kicking, still hoping & being re-rated

A few weeks ago I was sharing a table and a drink with a few captains that I use to meet at the flying club from time to time, wondering what stops airline companies from hiring young potentials. Modesty is a good virtue off course but I can say experienced people I am flying with do appreciate both my (cockpit) management skills and safety behaviour. And I am far from alone... a large group of highly qualified but - alas - low houred pilots is desparately looking for a job, putting a lot of money into staying current both in practice and knowledge. Nevertheless, there ís a market with quite a lot of job openings for cockpit crew... but one has to manage to gather a few hundreds or thousands of hours "on type" first. So, whatever time you spend on board of a well equipped glass cockpit plane or just the basic IFR trainer that you can afford as a jobseeker doesn't seem to count anymore these days. If only a decade ago I would have graduated, I would currently quite certainly be amongst those happy guys cruising airways many thousands of feet above from where I am writing this post on my blog. However, these captains whom I was sharing a table with, did encourage me not to give up since there are signs of revival in some parts of the world and larger companies start to lower their high hour-limit, which may be a sign of an increasing demand for crews. I wouldn't mind to move to a remote area or a booming new market... a good pilot "acts locally but thinks globally", isn't it? So, uncertain yet when or where a chance might be popping up, I did leave the captains' table with a slight feeling of hope and pinned a date to perform my ME/IR recheck which I successfully performed last week during a cross-border exam flight. Off course, and fellow blog-followers would admit, a post here on this blog wouldn't be a good post if it didn't come with a stunning picture as a finishing touch. This one was taken during the return trip of an IFR flight to LFAT, where my crew and myself were enjoying a magnificent sunset at flight level 090. As much as many of you, I do hope to return with some good news on this blog one day, although meanwhile I do keep enjoying good times in general aviation off course!

1 comment:

Family Baus said...

Captains that stayed until their 65 (new law) start retiring. They'll need young pilots very soon. Although companies like Emirates have still very large recruitment pools.

JC
www.photobaus.com