The Life of an Airline Pilot
by Captain Wayne (Rusty) Baker
“Most gulls don’t bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight — how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly. “
Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, 1970.
“I was sold on flying as soon as I had a taste for it. “ John Glenn.
The Life of an Airline Pilot
Basic Indoctrination:
The first weeks of your employment with your new airline will be busy. During Basic Indoctrination you will be assigned your seniority number. Seniority is based on your date of hire, which will be the same as everyone else in your class. Typically, the oldest new hire will be most senior, and the youngest will be the most junior. You will all be senior to the next new-hire class.
Seniority will determine your bid position for virtually everything beginning Day One and lasting for your entire time with the company.
You will bid on:
The type equipment you fly – Depending on the company’s needs, some new-hire classes will be offered the option to choose which airplane they wish to fly.
Domicile – Again depending upon company needs, more than one domicile may be available. This may also coincide with aircraft type. One aircraft may be based in one domicile, and another aircraft at a different domicile.
Later on, other opportunities to transfer domicile and/or equipment may become available.
Schedules – Typically bid every month. The trips you fly, the days you work, and whether you are on reserve (on-call, you never know where you are going or when, or who you will be paired with) or holding a line (scheduled flights, typically paired up with the same flight crew). If your bid position for your equipment, seat, and domicile is number 45, you will submit 45 choices, in your order of preference. Whatever remains after the first 44 pilots are awarded their schedules will be awarded to you in accordance with your order of preference.
Vacations – Typically bid annually. As with monthly schedules, if your bid position for your equipment, seat, and domicile is number 45, you will submit 45 choices, in your order of preference. Whatever remains after the first 44 pilots are awarded their schedules will be awarded to you in accordance with your order of preference. In the event that you upgrade or change equipment during the following year prior to having used your vacation, you will most likely be assigned vacation time from what remaining time is available.
Every airline does it slightly different, in accordance with contractual agreement, but it basically follows the above format.
One other important thing about seniority is that the last hired will be the first to be furloughed. Hopefully that will not happen to you, but it is a fact of life in the airline industry.
Reserve – Let’s be honest. Reserve sucks. You know your days off, but that’s it. You don’t know where you are going, who you are flying with, or when you will get back.
Holding a line – Most of the time, it is good to be a line holder. You know when and where you are going, and who you are paired with. The downside is, it can be a very long month if you are paired with someone who is hard to get along with. Your only options are to grin and bear it, or trade the trips. Chances are that if you are paired with a captain who is impossible to get along with, the word is probably already out, and it will be hard if not impossible to find someone willing to suffer the pain for you.
You will be fitted for uniforms at some point during the first week of class.
You will learn the FAA approved company operations specifications, which will cover all the things the airline is authorized to do. Among other things, takeoff minimums, alternate minimums, type of equipment you're going to operate, where you're going to operate, the types of navigation equipment permitted and flight planning, dispatch, flight following requirements. A written test covering subjects covered must be passed at the completion of the course.
Aircraft Systems ground school – Each airline will provide detailed training which cover all systems and limitations of the aircraft to be flown. At completion of training, pilots will be required to pass written and oral examinations.
Flight Standards – All your training is important. The company’s specific procedures and callouts must be committed to memory. Nobody cares that you flew the same type airplane at a previous company, and the surest way to wash out of simulator training is to try to impress your new company that you know a better way of doing things. They do not care how you did it at the other airline. The key to a successful operation at this level is standardization. When I do this, you do that. At this altitude, you say this and I do that. It is imperative that crewmembers are all reading the same sheet of music. It makes for a smoother operation, plus if one of you misses a callout, it should alert your fellow crewmember that something is not right. Your new company is signing your paychecks now. Do it their way. Every time. All the time. Cooperate and graduate.
Simulator training – This is where the rubber meets the road. The company will provide a certain number of training sessions. If you need more, some companies will commit to training to proficiency. Others will not. At the end of your training, you will fly a proficiency check (check ride). If you know your airplane, and you know the procedures and callouts COLD, you will do fine. Blow it off and you will soon be forgotten. Playing catchup is pure hell.
Initial Operating Experience (IOE), also known as Operating Experience (OE) – Following successful completion of simulator training and proficiency check, you will fly a few trips with a line check airman. This will be on-the-job training. Make no mistake, you are being evaluated and will be debriefed after each flight. Following the successful completion of this phase, you will be endorsed by the check airman and you are legal to go fly the line.
Flying the line – You will most likely start out on reserve and will be assigned flights to cover trips as the company requirements dictate. Someone calls in sick, someone is on vacation, or any one of a seemingly endless list of reasons occurs, you get the call.
You will learn the company routes, the hotels, the things to do at layover cities, your fellow crewmembers, etc. Although you should always conduct yourself as a professional, it is also important to remember that you are typically on probation for the first year. Screw up by behaving badly and you can kiss your airline career goodbye.
Flying is a great career! – Not perfect – you will miss birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, family gatherings, and many other things that ordinary people take for granted. But we choose to fly because we refuse to settle for an ordinary life.