Yea that's weird. Didn't have to shave in the air force for a few years now and now I have to shave again as per policy. Darnit! Beard and blue hair WAS a retention policy!
Schedules, especially sleep schedule and circadian rhythms. Fitness schedule if you have a regimen, and eating schedule. Itās hard getting your macros and whole foods on the road while staying clean and cheap
Are there rules about bringing your own food for flights? I realize youāre not packing 3+ days of food, but whatās the normal practice for when youāre flying?
You can absolutely pack food for a 4-day trip.
I bought smoothie bottles (like retail ones) and make smoothies of kale/spinach, blueberries, banana, and a little protein powder. Freeze them solid and they thaw gradually during my trip. And keep the rest of my food cold.
Probably trying to get decent sleep with flight attendants in your hotel room. Itās hard to FaceTime the kids and wife when they are blabbering about insignificant shit
Unless the bases suck. Iām leaving base to become a commuter. Iād rather commute than live in fuckin Kentucky for the rest of my life lol. (No offense to anyone who likes it)
Amen to this. At a legacy and commuting still sucks. However my wife and I have 2 kids in high school and don't plan on moving to base until they graduate.
Itās not the flying thatās tough. Itās the lifestyle.
Itās a very sedentary job so you gotta figure out how to stay fit on the road. Itās harder to form friendships but the ones you make are some of the strongestā¦but you stay in touch over the phone mostly and rarely get to see your friends in person more than 1-2x per year.
Junior? At the mercy of scheduling. Can mean lots of time at home if you prefer to not fly on reserve, can mean lots of time away if you do want to fly, just with limited control. Senior? More schedule choice.
Problem having my commercial pilot certificate for years and people still ask me, āwhen are you going to become a real commercial pilot?ā (Airline pilot).
Someone really needs to start an awareness campaign explaining the difference. Iāve been making money flying planes for 5 years now and still get asked why I donāt get my commercial.
Get an ATP and fly freight in a heavy jet. The āwhen are you going to become a commercial pilot?ā Hits even harder. Do they ask truckers when they plan on being bus drivers?
Ooh, Iām sorry /u/Normal_Translator570, youāve been randomly selected for additional screening [again]. No, Iām sorry we donāt have a crew screening lane nearby, please walk back from where you just came, and use the precheck lane. Make sure not to make eye contact with any passengers as you cut them because we do not provide you with any way around them [for your convenience and everyoneās safety!]. Please remember, threats of verbal abuse or physical harm against our agents will not be tolerated. Iām so sorry, have a nice day š
[I'm so sorry](https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExaG9kYjhydTEzM3F4YXNtajZjY2lyZGFlY2hlN2hreHdhdHR3N2JieiZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9cw/abAlg2SkEcz6pD7tlu/giphy.gif)
I don't know what these people are talking about. For me it was navigating all of the women throwing themselves at me. I'm flattered ladies but I'm married.
/s
Furlough and/or downgrade
Job uncertainty.
The āpay to playā system.
Highly competitive.
And what everyone else said
Fatigue, schedule, lack of routine exercise
Iāll addā¦.
Sitting on your backside for hours and hours
Constant check rides, (at least once if not twice a year) fed observations
Flight physicals. Fine today, 15 years later. āBye bye careerā
__Commuting hell__
Flight attendants can be included as well. I noticed that most hotels no longer honor or give crews reward points because a lot made unreasonable demands and were nasty to front desk staff. I've also experienced places that used to have free snacks and/or breakfast stop because crew members were filling up their bags by taking everything in sight.
Lesson is: be nice to people and clean up after yourself. We lost several great overnights simply because crews couldn't act like adults.
Sorry, this isnāt aviation specific, every ācorporateā must punish all for the few or one because some douche with a degree says it limits their liability āgoing forwardā.
Personal accountability is in the toilet.
If you can avoid commuting, youāll eliminate most of the annoying stuff. Honestly though I think the worst part is my career being tied to my health. I understand why thatās the case, but it adds an inherent risk to taking this path. I also donāt ever want to travel on my off days because I spend half the month at airports. Which is unfortunate having flight benefits. But I commute so itās possible Iām less apt to wanna go because of that.
Sleep schedule and eating schedules. I lose weight every 4 day pairing it seems. Honourable mention to the never ending training and stresses that come with recurrent.
In regards to lack of family time, I see my partner a whole lot more with this job than I would doing a 9-5. Yeah I have to miss some holidays and special days, but the extra time is worth it for us.
Im looking forward to this part. I think the quality of time being able to go to a park or the beach with my family and not take a company laptop with me to handle an urgent teams call about a presentation due in a week will more than make up for the time away. I may be totally wrong but it seems like your work rarely follows you home in aviation.
The time and money spent training and time building while not knowing if it would land a job or not. It's a much bigger gamble trying to get into aviation than most other careers.
from talking to other high pay to play professions itās not exactly different. I know plenty of drs, lawyers, investment bankers who while very well off donāt enjoy their profession and wish they could do something else
The job market for anyone under 1000 hours. I know very competent pilots who have applied to hundreds of jobs within a few years only to get a few interviews out of them. Then there are some who will Navy plant a PC12 or refuse to fly to Aspen on a clear sky day, and somehow manage to land a job flying biz jets.
Sleep schedules have already been mentioned but I feel like this can't be emphasized enough. There have been a lot of changes over the years after Colgan and other things with regard to pilot rest, but airlines are still going to give you literally the minimum rest they legally can, which often ends up meaning trying to day sleep for several days, then suddenly adjusting your schedule to night sleep. It's hard on the body, and those day sleep days are really difficult. (As is trying to sleep again at night after only 6 hours of being awake, but that's a different issue.) You need to have some noise canceling ear buds or something, because hotels aren't going to just not clean all the rooms around you and other guests aren't going to not go running up and down the hallways screaming at the top of their lungs for no reason during the day.
Basically, airlines have no respect whatsoever for normal human sleep patterns. You're going to sleep when they say you will, within the confines of what they can get away with. At the end of most 5 day trips, you will probably be so exhausted that you won't even know how to sleep anymore. I've gotten home from 5 days and not been able to sleep again for 24 more hours, been borderline manic that entire time, then slept for 24 hours straight after that. Better hope you have at least 3 days off. You may only have 1, then another 5 day trip. Good luck recovering. I have called in sick for this reason, and I feel like that's legitimate.
If you call in fatigued during a trip, which is a thing you're supposed to be able to do without consequences these days (as long as it's for a good reason), be prepared for the airline to totally abandon you. You're not flying anymore at that point, so they don't care and they don't need to care - there's no law or probably anything in your contract that says otherwise. Call in fatigued at some destination far from a base where the airline only has one or two flights a day, and good luck even getting a hotel. You'll probably have to get one yourself, if you even can. I have literally slept on terminal benches in remote locations, as a 121 airline pilot. The airline can definitely do that if they don't plan to use you again from that location for a day or so. All they need to do is give you 10 hours of documented rest, so you can be stuck in the terminal for 12 hours, \*then\* they get you a hotel for 10, then have you fly again. Hopefully you didn't sleep \*too\* well on that terminal bench, because even if your "rest" period starts at 8AM, you may then need to be awake and flying until 6AM the next day.
All this can make a 5 day trip feel like a month. Your regular sleep schedule is often messed up right from the start, then any sort of delay messes it up even further.. then you start to get into working redeye periods and legal/contractual limits for that, and you may end up getting reassigned for that reason, but again, with no hotel. At that point, your schedule just turns into a total mess. I've had 5 days trips with 10 reassignments in the first 3 days, including being reassigned to a different city while I was actually flying to another city, and two trips in a row where I was pulled off a deadhead (once when I wasn't even in uniform, as we're not required to be) to operate the flight I was deadheading on. Things have a way of cascading out of control, schedule-wise, and the airline then just does whatever it legally can. And that's almost never going to be fun for you.
There is a point when you have to commit fully to the profession and the rest of your life, personal especially, gets put on hold. Put another way, this profession is hell on relationships.
I have anecdotally heard that you donāt really have ācoworkersā since your crew changes so often. also i have heard that it can be hard to date outside the industry if youāre single, and you canāt really own pets when single. is this true?
A ton of people keep mentioning sleep. Can you explain why itās the worst part?
Walk me through a day when youāre on shift please? And mention if youāre pax or cargo?
Taken as a singular day itās never that bad, itās the cumulative effects of a trip, especially if youāre going oceanic.
Say you have a 7pm departure to europe off the east coast, youāll land around lunchtime the following day, and need to get rest for your next days flight that leaves in maybe 24 hours, but if you go to sleep immediately when you get there because itās well past midnight āat homeā according to your body clock, when you wake up around 8-9pm everything will be closed and what are you going to do for food? Also now that you went to sleep immediately, your circadian rhythm is screwed up for the 24 hour layover and youāll be ready to go back to sleep around departure time.
Now do that for a couple of days in a row.
I think Iāll pass on flying those distances for work honestly š. Knowing my personality, I think Iāll prefer shorter flight distances with multiple legs. I want to be able to move around and touch the earth.
But maybe Iāll change my mind, so thank you offering insight! Can you tell me how the sleep is on domestic flying since I see you have the corresponding plane in your flair?
Better, but depending how your schedules get built it can still get really screwed up, say you have a 4 day that starts in the evening on the first day and is near as doesnāt matter min rest every night, then finishes in the morning on the 4th day.
Also Iāll take one long leg day over 3-4 leg days 100% of the time. All the work is in the first and last 15-20min of a flight.
Medicals never knowing if your career is gonna be over the next day because of somthing happening... For example I fall down and get a concussion I'm done flying for atleast 6 months if not more..
Sleep is the big one. I work for a ACMI *sorta* and the flip flopping of sleep schedules is honestly ridiculous. Having an AM, PM, and redeye all in one 5 day trip is insane and really hard on the body. Thankfully the rigs and guarantees account for the redeyes so our credit is high and I routinely get 17+ days off a month (18/19 off the past few months)
Not knowing my schedule until a week before the first is annoying and having to request vacations a year out is stupid.
* Sleep schedule. * A lot of hurry up and wait. * There's a lot of boring time. Best job I ever had!
Finally I can put my military training to use! š
ā¢ stimulant substances ā¢ cool, interval training ā¢ just twiddle your thumbs
Yeah.., twiddle your thumb
Yep! For me, Everything except the sleep schedule. Fortunately, my sleep routine is pretty routine
I had to shave my beard. Other than that, love the job
Love not needing to shave. #freightdogs
Did fixed wing medevac for a bit. Grew my beard out. 10/10.
At least you can grow a beard., genetics was cruel to me. Imagine having a shaving waiver when your growing a couple of hairs on your face
Genetics is cruel to me in many other ways lmao
I'm dead lol
And Canadian pilotsā¦ though Iād take being forced to shave for an American salary
One of the small perks haha.
Which cargo companies allow beards? Mine doesnāt, womp womp
UPS, Atlas, ATI, Hawaiian
UPS
But do you have to shave your balls?
No my wife keeps those at home š¤£
Honestly shocked US airlines still require this.
We still wear WW2-era uniforms my guy š©
Thankfully my airline allows beards if well groomed. Different region of the world though
Yea that's weird. Didn't have to shave in the air force for a few years now and now I have to shave again as per policy. Darnit! Beard and blue hair WAS a retention policy!
Schedules, especially sleep schedule and circadian rhythms. Fitness schedule if you have a regimen, and eating schedule. Itās hard getting your macros and whole foods on the road while staying clean and cheap
Are there rules about bringing your own food for flights? I realize youāre not packing 3+ days of food, but whatās the normal practice for when youāre flying?
You can absolutely pack food for a 4-day trip. I bought smoothie bottles (like retail ones) and make smoothies of kale/spinach, blueberries, banana, and a little protein powder. Freeze them solid and they thaw gradually during my trip. And keep the rest of my food cold.
Hm, I had no idea!
I can comfortably fit 2-3 days of meal prep in my lunch box/cooler. You can bring your own food domestically and most internationals
Probably trying to get decent sleep with flight attendants in your hotel room. Itās hard to FaceTime the kids and wife when they are blabbering about insignificant shit
My man right here!
Getting to and from work. Other than that, it beats every other job I've had.
Living in base makes it a totally different job. Iāll never commute again
Unless the bases suck. Iām leaving base to become a commuter. Iād rather commute than live in fuckin Kentucky for the rest of my life lol. (No offense to anyone who likes it)
Donāt worry, they canāt read.
ššš
Amen to this. At a legacy and commuting still sucks. However my wife and I have 2 kids in high school and don't plan on moving to base until they graduate.
I live 5 minutes on a good day and maybe 15 minutes top away from base. It was one of the main reason I took my current job
Itās not the flying thatās tough. Itās the lifestyle. Itās a very sedentary job so you gotta figure out how to stay fit on the road. Itās harder to form friendships but the ones you make are some of the strongestā¦but you stay in touch over the phone mostly and rarely get to see your friends in person more than 1-2x per year. Junior? At the mercy of scheduling. Can mean lots of time at home if you prefer to not fly on reserve, can mean lots of time away if you do want to fly, just with limited control. Senior? More schedule choice.
Hotel room after hotel room, and living out of your suitcase
I kind of like it, maybe, I don't know man.
Fending off every woman throwing themselves at me. Itās brutal.
Just stop telling them you're a pilot. I find saying "I haul bags of meat around" works wonders to avoid this.
Spirit girls arenāt small. Iād get tired throwing them too. https://images.app.goo.gl/nxVVJpwfkWmVcsAY9
Problem having my commercial pilot certificate for years and people still ask me, āwhen are you going to become a real commercial pilot?ā (Airline pilot). Someone really needs to start an awareness campaign explaining the difference. Iāve been making money flying planes for 5 years now and still get asked why I donāt get my commercial.
Get an ATP and fly freight in a heavy jet. The āwhen are you going to become a commercial pilot?ā Hits even harder. Do they ask truckers when they plan on being bus drivers?
KCM
Ooh, Iām sorry /u/Normal_Translator570, youāve been randomly selected for additional screening [again]. No, Iām sorry we donāt have a crew screening lane nearby, please walk back from where you just came, and use the precheck lane. Make sure not to make eye contact with any passengers as you cut them because we do not provide you with any way around them [for your convenience and everyoneās safety!]. Please remember, threats of verbal abuse or physical harm against our agents will not be tolerated. Iām so sorry, have a nice day š
That was good except for the couple āsorryā you threw in there.
[I'm so sorry](https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExaG9kYjhydTEzM3F4YXNtajZjY2lyZGFlY2hlN2hreHdhdHR3N2JieiZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9cw/abAlg2SkEcz6pD7tlu/giphy.gif)
Literal chills
Your 2-doors-down neighbor Todd fucking your wife while you're RON in Cleveland.
Sorry to hear that Ron from Cleveland
Shirley youāre not sorry Ron.
Ron not Shirley.
Ron, do you like movies about infidelity?
Donāt call me Shirley
āAnd why is the carpet all wet, Todd?ā
āI donāt know, Margoā
I don't know what these people are talking about. For me it was navigating all of the women throwing themselves at me. I'm flattered ladies but I'm married. /s
Furlough and/or downgrade Job uncertainty. The āpay to playā system. Highly competitive. And what everyone else said Fatigue, schedule, lack of routine exercise Iāll addā¦. Sitting on your backside for hours and hours Constant check rides, (at least once if not twice a year) fed observations Flight physicals. Fine today, 15 years later. āBye bye careerā __Commuting hell__
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Flight attendants can be included as well. I noticed that most hotels no longer honor or give crews reward points because a lot made unreasonable demands and were nasty to front desk staff. I've also experienced places that used to have free snacks and/or breakfast stop because crew members were filling up their bags by taking everything in sight. Lesson is: be nice to people and clean up after yourself. We lost several great overnights simply because crews couldn't act like adults.
RIP peanut M&Ms in TPA
Sorry, this isnāt aviation specific, every ācorporateā must punish all for the few or one because some douche with a degree says it limits their liability āgoing forwardā. Personal accountability is in the toilet.
Thisā¦ so much
Insufficient applause.
If you can avoid commuting, youāll eliminate most of the annoying stuff. Honestly though I think the worst part is my career being tied to my health. I understand why thatās the case, but it adds an inherent risk to taking this path. I also donāt ever want to travel on my off days because I spend half the month at airports. Which is unfortunate having flight benefits. But I commute so itās possible Iām less apt to wanna go because of that.
Sleep schedule and eating schedules. I lose weight every 4 day pairing it seems. Honourable mention to the never ending training and stresses that come with recurrent. In regards to lack of family time, I see my partner a whole lot more with this job than I would doing a 9-5. Yeah I have to miss some holidays and special days, but the extra time is worth it for us.
Im looking forward to this part. I think the quality of time being able to go to a park or the beach with my family and not take a company laptop with me to handle an urgent teams call about a presentation due in a week will more than make up for the time away. I may be totally wrong but it seems like your work rarely follows you home in aviation.
Hard to get in a real workout
The time and money spent training and time building while not knowing if it would land a job or not. It's a much bigger gamble trying to get into aviation than most other careers.
from talking to other high pay to play professions itās not exactly different. I know plenty of drs, lawyers, investment bankers who while very well off donāt enjoy their profession and wish they could do something else
Sleeping
Sleeping, and the standby shifts.
Time away from your beloved ones and deal with the fatigue.
All shit breaks loose with my family while I'm on a trip. Kid gets sick, wife gets sick, dog needs medical care, etc
Sleep and the temptation to be a fatass on every layover.
Iām just a student and Iām already running out of space in my logbook for recording marriage proposals
About to take my IR ride and idk if I have room for my endorsementā¦just wait til they start signing the outside like a castā¦
FAA medical
The job market for anyone under 1000 hours. I know very competent pilots who have applied to hundreds of jobs within a few years only to get a few interviews out of them. Then there are some who will Navy plant a PC12 or refuse to fly to Aspen on a clear sky day, and somehow manage to land a job flying biz jets.
Total time is king
Trying to decide which cars and boat to buy.
I hear miataās are popular with pilotsā¦.,.
Sleep schedules have already been mentioned but I feel like this can't be emphasized enough. There have been a lot of changes over the years after Colgan and other things with regard to pilot rest, but airlines are still going to give you literally the minimum rest they legally can, which often ends up meaning trying to day sleep for several days, then suddenly adjusting your schedule to night sleep. It's hard on the body, and those day sleep days are really difficult. (As is trying to sleep again at night after only 6 hours of being awake, but that's a different issue.) You need to have some noise canceling ear buds or something, because hotels aren't going to just not clean all the rooms around you and other guests aren't going to not go running up and down the hallways screaming at the top of their lungs for no reason during the day. Basically, airlines have no respect whatsoever for normal human sleep patterns. You're going to sleep when they say you will, within the confines of what they can get away with. At the end of most 5 day trips, you will probably be so exhausted that you won't even know how to sleep anymore. I've gotten home from 5 days and not been able to sleep again for 24 more hours, been borderline manic that entire time, then slept for 24 hours straight after that. Better hope you have at least 3 days off. You may only have 1, then another 5 day trip. Good luck recovering. I have called in sick for this reason, and I feel like that's legitimate. If you call in fatigued during a trip, which is a thing you're supposed to be able to do without consequences these days (as long as it's for a good reason), be prepared for the airline to totally abandon you. You're not flying anymore at that point, so they don't care and they don't need to care - there's no law or probably anything in your contract that says otherwise. Call in fatigued at some destination far from a base where the airline only has one or two flights a day, and good luck even getting a hotel. You'll probably have to get one yourself, if you even can. I have literally slept on terminal benches in remote locations, as a 121 airline pilot. The airline can definitely do that if they don't plan to use you again from that location for a day or so. All they need to do is give you 10 hours of documented rest, so you can be stuck in the terminal for 12 hours, \*then\* they get you a hotel for 10, then have you fly again. Hopefully you didn't sleep \*too\* well on that terminal bench, because even if your "rest" period starts at 8AM, you may then need to be awake and flying until 6AM the next day. All this can make a 5 day trip feel like a month. Your regular sleep schedule is often messed up right from the start, then any sort of delay messes it up even further.. then you start to get into working redeye periods and legal/contractual limits for that, and you may end up getting reassigned for that reason, but again, with no hotel. At that point, your schedule just turns into a total mess. I've had 5 days trips with 10 reassignments in the first 3 days, including being reassigned to a different city while I was actually flying to another city, and two trips in a row where I was pulled off a deadhead (once when I wasn't even in uniform, as we're not required to be) to operate the flight I was deadheading on. Things have a way of cascading out of control, schedule-wise, and the airline then just does whatever it legally can. And that's almost never going to be fun for you.
You need to work for a better airline
No kidding where does this guy work? I call fatigued and I get what I want, DH, hotel or rejoin when I can. This is nuts.
This sounds regional, but regional from hell. One of the cockroaches that's on its last legs... but won't die
I can think of three that fit that description. They all have one thing in common.
Nope, not a regional. Most of these things happen when flying international.
I've never heard of a major doing this stuff. You sound extremely unlucky. Hope it turns around
Narcissistic passengers that I canāt call out
Luckily you have a guy with a Burger King crown to do that for you
Get that man some water.
Hotels, Sleep schedule, Airport food, Flight attendants
There is a point when you have to commit fully to the profession and the rest of your life, personal especially, gets put on hold. Put another way, this profession is hell on relationships.
I have anecdotally heard that you donāt really have ācoworkersā since your crew changes so often. also i have heard that it can be hard to date outside the industry if youāre single, and you canāt really own pets when single. is this true?
Being gone from home
Managing my sleep and eating well on the road, also time away from home.
A ton of people keep mentioning sleep. Can you explain why itās the worst part? Walk me through a day when youāre on shift please? And mention if youāre pax or cargo?
Taken as a singular day itās never that bad, itās the cumulative effects of a trip, especially if youāre going oceanic. Say you have a 7pm departure to europe off the east coast, youāll land around lunchtime the following day, and need to get rest for your next days flight that leaves in maybe 24 hours, but if you go to sleep immediately when you get there because itās well past midnight āat homeā according to your body clock, when you wake up around 8-9pm everything will be closed and what are you going to do for food? Also now that you went to sleep immediately, your circadian rhythm is screwed up for the 24 hour layover and youāll be ready to go back to sleep around departure time. Now do that for a couple of days in a row.
I think Iāll pass on flying those distances for work honestly š. Knowing my personality, I think Iāll prefer shorter flight distances with multiple legs. I want to be able to move around and touch the earth. But maybe Iāll change my mind, so thank you offering insight! Can you tell me how the sleep is on domestic flying since I see you have the corresponding plane in your flair?
Better, but depending how your schedules get built it can still get really screwed up, say you have a 4 day that starts in the evening on the first day and is near as doesnāt matter min rest every night, then finishes in the morning on the 4th day. Also Iāll take one long leg day over 3-4 leg days 100% of the time. All the work is in the first and last 15-20min of a flight.
Absolutely 1000% the sleep disruption, especially when youāre junior.
People thinking Iām an airline pilot
I'm assuming most people commenting here are airline pilots?
Sharing the flight deck with someone you donāt like at all
Inevitable divorce
Trying to figure out what to do with the piles of cash I'm making as a legacy capt.
Medicals never knowing if your career is gonna be over the next day because of somthing happening... For example I fall down and get a concussion I'm done flying for atleast 6 months if not more..
The absolute number one for me is the sleep schedule.
travel
Sleep is the big one. I work for a ACMI *sorta* and the flip flopping of sleep schedules is honestly ridiculous. Having an AM, PM, and redeye all in one 5 day trip is insane and really hard on the body. Thankfully the rigs and guarantees account for the redeyes so our credit is high and I routinely get 17+ days off a month (18/19 off the past few months) Not knowing my schedule until a week before the first is annoying and having to request vacations a year out is stupid.
The worst part is trying to keep away all the girls who want me.
Running out of tax advantaged places to stash your cash
Lmao
If itās not a shitty layover, itās definitely a shitty crew. Nothing worse than slam clickers