Interview with an Airline Pilot

Interview with an Airline Captain

Instructor Babbitt interviews Airline Captain David Santo:

1) What happens when there’s an emergency on the airplane?
2) What is it like to be an Airline Captain?
3) How do flight crews work together?
4) How is flying an airliner different from flying a general aviation aircraft?
5) Why is everything scripted below 10,000 feet?
6) How do you prepare for a type rating program?

Ready to get started on your own flying adventure?

Never flown before?   Explore our Pilot Academy for options for your first demo flight and your first lessons.

Looking to advance your career to the next step?  Earn your ATP-CTP Certification.

Need a Type Rating for an airline job?  Check out or Airbus 320 or Boeing 737 options.

AeroStar Training Services – The Overview

In this short video, Captain David Santo answers questions about AeroStar Training  Services, including

  • How is Aerostar different from other pilot training organizations?
  • What credentials does AeroStar hold?
  • What pilot training programs does it offer?
  • How about beginners with no aviation experience?
  • Who will we be working/studying with?
  • How do we get started?

How is AeroStar different from other pilot training organizations?

Hello, my name is David Santo, and I’m the Chief Training Officer at AeroStar Training Services. I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know a little bit about AeroStar, and what we have to offer you. AeroStar was formed by a group of airline professionals with one goal in mind. We wanted to help aviation career dreams take flight. What that meant to us is we had enjoyed successful careers as airline pilots, and we wanted to be able to provide a pathway to help others to obtain the career goals, and success that we had.

What credentials does AeroStar hold?

AeroStar is an FAR 142 type rate training organization. What that means is, we operate under the FAR that allows a pilot to obtain a aircraft type rating, or add an airline transport pilot certificate by using advanced flight simulation technology.

When we started we dry leased airline simulators, and aircraft manufacturer simulators all over the country. Today we now have in our own facilities two Level D A320, and Boeing 737 full flight simulators. These simulators are state of the art technology. They sit on six axis hydraulic motion basis. We had 220 degree wrap around collimated visual systems that represent exactly the aircraft, and airport environment that you would be able to operate in. A Level D simulator is the highest level of simulator certification. With this simulator, and they’re called full flight sim’s, you can actually complete 100% of a type rating, or an ATP check ride without ever having to go out and fly the aircraft itself.

Tell us about the instructors.

Our staff is comprised of some really fantastic people who have years of airline, and training experience that we bring together for you. This includes CFIs, CFIIs, MEI,  It includes airline transport pilots, current active and retired airline captains, and first officers.

What pilot training programs does AeroStar provide?

Today AeroStar offers a number of different programs. We offer type ratings under two different formats, initial, and what we call the fast track program. We offer an upgrade transition type rating course for those who already have experience time and type. We offer recurrent training for those who are actively flying the aircraft, and need to accomplish a PC check, and we are one of a few schools in the United States that offers the airline transport pilot certification training program, or atp ctp.

How about beginners with no aviation experience?

Under our 141 part 61 certificate we’re able to provide the private instrument commercial multi-engine flight training, so together we can take an applicant from zero flight experience all the way through type rating, airline placement ready all on one location here in Kissimmee, Florida

Who will we be working/studying with?

We have a wonderful staff who are manning our phones, and are able to answer emails. I’m very proud to say that our admissions specialists are all pilots themselves. They’re all eager to help you.

How do we get started?

If we can do anything to give you guidance, answer questions, help you realize your dream of becoming an airline pilot, or a commercial pilot, then please I encourage you to call us at (407) 888-9011. That’s here in the U.S.

You can also reach us at [email protected]. We’d be very pleased to work with you, and help you in any way we can. On behalf of myself, David Santo, and the entire team here at AeroStar, thank you for watching. We look forward to working with you, and seeing you out on the flight line.

 

Aerostar Celebrates 10th Anniversary with Special Rates on The Best Pilot Training

We have provided the best pilot training for 10 years! Time isn’t the only thing that’s flying by!

Our students are flying A320s and B737s for airlines around the world as first officers and captains, and many have “graduated” to other planes and positions as well.

We’re very proud of their success, so to celebrate, we’re doing what we do best – making the very best training in the most popular aircraft affordable so more students can enjoy great careers!

Best pilot training for 10 years

We’re offering our A320 PIC Standard course for just $11,800, for the February 4th and February 19th courses only.

Did you know – the A320 is so popular that Airbus is adding a second assembly line in the Mobile, Alabama facility?

“Airbus has confirmed that it will hold a groundbreaking ceremony for its new A220 assembly line in Mobile on Wednesday, Jan. 16. . . .

Airbus already has an extensive campus at the Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley, where it assembles the A320 family of jets. The new project will add a second final assembly line (FAL) for the smaller A220 family of jets. That aircraft was developed as the C Series by Canada-based Bombardier, but has been renamed since Airbus took the lead role in a partnership to produce and market it.”

Airbus confirms Jan. 16 groundbreaking for new Mobile assembly line

Someone is going to have to fly all those planes, why not you?

Prepare for a career that’s hugely in demand with the best pilot training in the world. Many, many airlines around the world operate A320 aircraft. Our graduates have lots of opportunities to choose from!

Get started with our Enrollment Form. here.

Call Garfield Greene at 404- 888-9011 or write [email protected] with any questions!

See you in the sky!

 

AeroStar Enjoys WATS Conference

Aerostar booth at the WATS conferenceThe AeroStar Team enjoyed the WATS conference  – we attend each year to keep up to speed with what’s going on in the Aviation Training industry, and to connect with vendors, partners and others.
We enjoyed meeting all kinds of aviation training professionals at our booth, and want to thank everyone who dropped by and/or participated in our drawing.

 

Congratulations to Frank with Sim Industries, who was the winner of our a320 type rating Prize at the WATS Conference! #WATS2018

WATS Conference 2018 - Winner of our Drawing

WATS is the world’s largest gathering of aviation training professionals serving airlines, regulators, training providers and training industry with more than 1,200 expected from 50+ countries expected. WATS offers a relaxed yet professional environment conducive to developing new and building existing business relationships. WATS offers unrivalled opportunities to meet with your peers from the senior echelons of the international airline training community, to discuss the latest training issues and consider and learn how others have addressed and resolved these scenarios.

For those who career takes them across the world to promote training solutions and those for whom sharing training experiences WATS truly provides a huge saving in time and cost by enabling ‘three months worth of meetings in three days’.

WATS 2018 will deliver five independent and impartial conference streams alongside the sector’s biggest tradeshow, with all delegates receiving full access the event.

U.S Airways Flies into the History Books

 

US Airways traces its roots back to 1939 when it was known as All American Aviation, an Air Mail Carrier founded by the DuPont family. The airline was headquartered in Pittsburgh & mostly served areas in the Ohio River Valley. As it made the transition to passenger service in the early 1950’s, the airline was officially renamed Allegheny Air in 1953. The original fleet of DC-3’s was modernized in 1966 with the upgrade to the DC-9 Jet Aircraft. Allegheny changed its name to USAir in 1979 following the passage of the Airline Deregulation Act the previous year, which enabled the airline to expand its route network into the southeastern United States. Finally, in 1997, the airline changed its name to US Airways and introduced a new corporate identity. A stylized version of the Flag of the United States was adopted as a new logo.

US Airways was one of the major airlines in the United States owned by the US Airways Group and headquartered in Tempe, Arizona. It flew to 198 domestic and international destinations throughout the Middle East, Europe, South America, and North America. The company maintained a predominantly Airbus fleet, with some Boeing jets and small fleet of Embraer jets. The post-merger continues to operate the largest fleet of Airbus aircraft in the world.

In February 2013, American Airlines and US Airways announced plans to merge, creating the largest airline in the world. The holding companies of American and US Airways merged effective December 9, 2013. The combined airline will carry the American Airlines name and branding and will maintain the existing US Airways hubs in Charlotte, Philadelphia and Phoenix for a period of at least five years. The company’s management team runs the combined airline from the American headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. On April 8, 2015, the FAA officially granted a single operating certificate for both carriers, marking the end of US Airways as an independent carrier. The brand would continue to exist until October 2015.

On July 13, 2015, American announced that it planned to discontinue the US Airways brand name on October 17, 2015. On that date, the company made their final flight from San Francisco to Philadelphia with stops at Phoenix and Charlotte, operating as Flight 1939. However, repainting of planes into the American Airlines scheme is expected to take until “late 2016,” and new flight attendant uniforms should be introduced next year, at which point the brand will no longer be displayed on any of its former planes, employees or assets.

*Statistical data courtesy of Reuters & Air Transport World

 

RAA Convention Update – Future Pilot Career Outlook

We recently returned from the RAA convention and are very encouraged about the prospects for pilots starting airline careers.

The Regional Airlines (members of the RAA) are an important career step for many of AeroStar’s former students as they graduate to legacy carriers and wide-body pilot positions. Advancing through the ranks at a regional airline can set you apart from other candidates applying for Captain or First Officer positions at larger, more prestigious carriers.

Many regional airlines have realized that they need to provide additional incentives to attract quality candidates. Those incentives may come in the form of sign-on bonuses, training opportunities, and other incentives that make these positions more attractive than they may have been in the past.

 

Pilot Jobs – Moving Back to the US from Overseas

back to the us from overseasPaula Williams –

Great. Robert from Oklahoma has, is looking at moving back to the US from overseas, he’s rated in the B737 and A320 and looking to do the ATP on his Airbus certificate and get a job.

Captain David Santo –

So all great goals, and I think it’s I’d love to hear where Robert has been but welcome back Robert, it’s a good time to come back. 142 school like Arrowstar, can do your atp ctp the new prerequisite for the written. If you don’t already have it, if you already have the written. You can attend a typewriting course based on your experience, add the typewriting and as long as you meet all the prerequisites set by the FAA we can get the ATP certificate check done at the exact same time. That gives you for example in our program, if you attend a standard type rating, that gives you 28 hours of jet multi-engine instrument time, because we use full flight level D simulators.

So it counts as actual twin, counts as jet, counts as instrument, multi-crew time. That can go towards the new 50 hour requirement for your ATP. And we can do the check rides combined with no additional cost. So it’s a great way, to pad your log book with some extra jet time.

Get a type writing on your license, that never goes away. And add that ATP certificate that you absolutely need now to get a job in the US.

Paula Williams –

And save some money at the same time, so you don’t have to do those separately.

Captain David Santo –

Well, that’s right, I mean, I think a lot of people don’t understand too the fact that if you do a type rating and your type rating is $13,000, $15,000. But you’re getting 28 hours of twin jet time out of it. Take the amount of money it costs to rent a twin, if anybody will rent you one  And multiply that out. Pretty soon the type rating is a pretty cheap option to do, a time builder, to get a type rating that’s on your license that never expires and add your ATP.

Paula Williams –

Right here’s another one on the theme of moving forward to the US,what airlines running A320s would be the best to apply for overseas crew for their first USA based airline, with an endorsement

Captain David Santo –

So I, so first I would like to say that we’ve worked with a whole lot of pilots from Australia we’ve done a lot of training at Aerostar under Casa. And have done that very successfully. A lot of our Australian customers are affiliated with Tiger Airways which is an A320 operation in Australia.

So what airlines running A320s would the best to apply for overseas, for overseas crews? Well, to work in the US, you have to have a green card or you have to be a US citizen. So no US airline is going to be able to hire you based on the current laws, unless you have either a green card or you are a US citizen.

Once you have that almost every major airline in the United States operates airbuses. The only one that comes to mind that does not, is Southwest Airlines. But if you think of every other major airline in the U.S, they all operate Airbuses now. Outside the U.S. certainly Australian Casa-qualified pilots have been in big demand on the Pacific Rim.

So any of the Asian countries on the Pacific Rim. Big demand for Australian pilots.

Pilot Careers – Regionals to Majors

From our Airline Pilot Career Workshop – Drew from Virginia asks – “I’m at a regional and looking to take the next step!”

Moving from the regionals to majors is a big key to success in an airline career.


Paula Williams

 

Fantastic. Alright, Drew from Virginia says, I’m at a regional and looking to take the next step. Well Drew if you’re at a regional right now, congratulations because I think you’re in a great position. The regionals actually are going to be struggling to find qualified pilots to backfill because the airlines are hiring so many of the regional pilots.

David Santo

And you guys are actually the best prepared. To make that next step. And I would say best prepared, here in the US. Of course those folks that went overseas, and are flying Air Buses and Boeing’s, they’re coming back, very well prepared too. To take the next step I would say be.

Be persistent in applying, the squeaky wheel gets the oil so you need to actively prove to the airline that you’re applying to that you’re a good candidate. One of the biggest mistakes that I’ve experienced from helping young men and women pursue this career. Is they put out an application and, and they think well it’s all on auto pilot form here.

It’s not. You’ve got to be updating your application as frequently as possible. You’ve got to be updating your hours. You’ve got to be going to the job fairs. You’ve got to be making yourself. The squeaky wheel. Getting yourself to the top of the application pool. Anything you can do to increase your professional standing too.

If you’re already typed in the RJ or the ERJ or the aircraft that you’re flying, that’s great, if you’ve completed your ATP, which I’m sure you have, those are things that are, clearly going to help you. You should consider whether a typewriting would help you to get on with an airline Jet Blue, With Spirit, With Virgin.

How much are you willing to invest now to make that next step sooner, so that you can get the bigger return on investment.

Airline Pilot Career Workshop – Video Clip

Paula Williams

Welcome to our Airline Pilot Career Workshop. And we’re actually really happy to have Captain Dave Santo with us and we’ll introduce him in just a minute. But you know, one thing that I was taught while I was growing up is the best thing that you can do. If you’re looking at a career or anything else, is to find someone who is in that field, and ask them every question that you can think of. And we don’t really get that opportunity that much these days. It’s not like you can corner a, an airline pilot in when you see one in an airport and just ask him any question you can think of. So, we have one cornered now.

We have one cornered now.   And Captain Dave is really, really good at what he does and he’s very open to, to answering questions. So, thank you for joining us. This webinar will be 45 minutes. We may run a little bit over to, depending on questions and things like that, we’ll try and get everybody answer to the best of our ability. We’ve got a lot of people on the line today from all over the world. Participants are muted, but you can submit questions by typing them into the chat window at any time. Most of the questions we have in the slideshow were submitted to us when you registered for this course.

So thank you for those questions. And we’re really glad that you’re here. Please put aside your distractions and grab a pen. Cuz you’re gonna wanna take notes. And make sure that you are paying full attention. Cuz like I said, we don’t get this opportunity as often as we would like!

So captain Dave, welcome. Thank you for joining us.

David Santo

Thank you, Paula. And thank you, John, for having me. It’s great to be with you.

Paula Williams

Excellent. So can you tell us a little bit about what you’ve been doing with U.S. air carriers. And I know you’ve worked in private aviation. And, and several other places. You’ve even flown gliders. So, you’ve got a wide variety of experience in aviation.

David Santo

Well, Paula thank you. In a nutshell yeah I started in gliders actually as a teenager. I had a job working at a Glider Port. What they call being a line boy which is young men and women who hook up the ropes and hold the wings for the glider during the launch.   So, I’ve been doing that since I was 13. I came up through civilian aviation although I was very interested in the military it just didn’t end up being my path. And so in my pursuit of my career I’ve flown for on demand charter, I’ve flown air ambulance, cargo and corporate. I’ve flown small aircraft Cessna 206, 207 flying bank checks all the way up to 747-400s. Flying freight and currently I’m an A320 captain for a major U.S. airline.

Paula Williams

Well that’s fantastic it sounds like you’ve done pretty anything that can be done maybe with the exception of helicopters, that’s pretty much everything else. [LAUGH] And of course this session is, is sponsored by Aerostar Training Services. LSE and you’re one of the founders of that organization.

David Santo

I am, so, I have always kind of gravitated towards training. I’ve worked for a number of training departments and in a number of training capacities and when I had the opportunity to work as a found of Aerostar. An organization whose tagline is helping aviation career dreams take flight. That was very exciting for me and it’s been a privilege to be a part of trying to help others get high quality, low cost training on Air Buses and Boeing equipment. So, it’s been an exciting time in addition to my airline career to work with Aerostar.

Paula Williams

Fantastic. And like I said, this is a great opportunity for people you know, who may be interested in an airline career to really dig in and, and ask questions. And you know, you’re very open to, I think, just about anything. I think we got a whole bunch on the slide show, but there are lots of people may not have thought of.

So if you asked a question when you registered for this session it will probably be included in this presentation. And if we don’t have time to cover you’re question we’ll, we’ll reach out to you personally. So, some of the topics we’ll be covering, career paths salary, a lot of questions were about that.

Quality of life for pilots. And so on and we’ll start with some general information. We’ve got about four slides that you shared with me, Dave, about the market in general. This first slide is about the approximate number of pilots in the major US Airlines, and I know that is a topic of interest to lots of people.

Airline Pilot Career Webinar

 

David Santo

Yeah, there’s quite a few people of course in the airline industry right now, and the projection is for huge growth. Both domestic United States and of course around the world. In fact the largest growth is outside of the United States probably looking at Asia with something like 30.

5 to 39% of the growth over the next 20 years. There’s a lot of folks in this industry, there’s a lot of folks at different stages in the industry. And I try to focus on looking at the success stories. It’s not an easy career, it is a challenging career, it’s a very professional career.

But, there are a lot of people. I mean, look at these numbers. Thousands and thousands of people have made it to be airline pilots. If all of these folks can make it to be airline pilots, certainly anybody can who applies themselves, who work towards it. Now, I should be careful in saying anybody.

There are some innate skills that are required. There is some aptitude that is required. But, the vast majority of those people who really want this career, there is a pathway for success. And that’s what you’re seeing with

these numbers. There’s just huge numbers of pilots, who’ve actually succeeded.

Paula Williams

Exactly. And growing from what I understand.

David Santo

And there’s a huge number that are retiring. Off the top of, of all of these numbers. So, you know, if you look at the number that are required, and some of the demographics of pilots retiring. And also the growth in the industry.

Paula Williams

It’s just a huge opportunity right now.

David Santo

Well that’s exactly right. And so, one of the things we have to look at that’s very exciting. Is the growth opportunity out ahead of this over the next 20 years. There are some that will look in the rear view mirror and they see the past 20 years, and they try to say that the next 20 will look a lot like the, the last 20.

And that is absolutely wrong. In the last 20 years, we went through a huge downturn and, and kind of a, a lull in the aviation industry. The, this was precipitated by September 11th and the economic downtown and the housing bubble here in the US. Now, you’re seeing kind of a hiring tsunami.

Because, the airline industries are picking up. All of the major airlines are making money. All of the major airlines are hiring. And at the same time, there hasn’t been a lot of hiring in the past 20 years. So naturally, the people that were hired 20 years ago. They’re getting close to retirement.

Which means that it’s a double whammy for the industry, creating this hiring tsunami. A bunch of retirements and a lot of growth, means a lot of new opportunities for young men and women coming into the industry.

Paula Williams

 Right. And I know one of the things that you’ve mentioned to me is that in this industry, seniority is, is everything or longevity is everything. And I think this this chart shows a lot about that, and I apologize for the quality of this. We it wasn’t the best screenshot, but I think the information is important enough that we just picked it up and used it.

David Santo

Yeah, but look at some of these numbers. I mean, wow. Let’s go out here to. This is major US Airlines, 8320 and similar first officers in the US. Let’s just pick a point on the ten year line. It’s more than $140, between $120 and $140 an hour.

How many jobs, professional careers, pay that kind of hourly wage? I mean, that’s pretty exciting stuff there. And if you want to do just kind of a rough average, if you, you anticipate that in a year a pilot will fly about. 1,000 hours in 12 months. That means that you could just take this number simply by 1,000.

So, if you’re making $120 an hour, it’s $120,000 a year income. That’s not including profit sharing, that’s not including 401K or retirements. So, anybody who says that this is not a lucrative career I challenge them to look at these numbers, it’s really exciting.

John Williams

 So, you said they’ll fly about a 1,000 hours a year, so is this based on flight time or work time.

David Santo

It’s based on flight time John, so most airline pilots are paid based on some combination of the doors closed and the break released, or the doors closed and the aircraft begins to push back. And they are paid from that point until they part the airplane at the other end of the lane.

There is some time spent for example doing pre-flights and walk rounds that we currently industry standard, don’t get paid for.

Paula Williams

Right, but the average is still pretty good. One thing I wanted to point out is there’s a huge difference between year 1 and year 5. So, you know, a lot of people that get into this industry feel that maybe the entry level pay is not what they would be hoping for. You know, especially considering you know, that some of them have accrued some debt in their education and things. So they’re taking a job in year one that may not be what they had been hoping for, but if you look at the difference between year one and year five. You know, in some cases it’s you know, between, it would take just the line for American Airlines, you know, from 65 to 125, actually more like close to 135 within the first five years.

David Santo

Yeah, that’s exciting news, but even if you look at the entry level, the average there of the airlines is somewhere between 60 and $75 an hour.

Paula Williams

Right.

David Santo

So a starting income at 60 to $75,000 a year.

Paula Williams

Mm-hm.

David Santo

That’s still, when you look at the how that ranks with entry level jobs in America, I would say that that is nothing to sneeze at.

Paula Williams

Right, I mean, you look at doctors that have their internships and everything else. And I mean, they go further in debt usually in their first couple of years of work as opposed to starting to have a lifestyle that is a little post-college [LAUGH] which is nice

David Santo

We have to in all fairness, what happens in the career path is most pilots come out of college and they either flight instruct or they work as a flight instructor until they get a job with a commuter or a regional airline to build their time. So it’s not unlike a doctor in the fact that there is kind of this internship this time after college, but before you get on with a major US airline there is that time interval in the industry, and that time interval is becoming shorter, and shorter because of the demand.

So what we’re seeing in the airlines is people are, are post college. About three years, some five years are able to make that leap into the major airline. Well, if you graduate at 22 and you make the leap by 25 to 27. You’re looking at a lot of longevity, and if you do the math on these tables, you’re talking about millions of dollars worth of lifetime earnings, to get over there and get that seniority started as soon as possible.

Paula Williams

Great, exactly, and then this next one is rates of pay as a 12 year captain. So this is kind of the the pinnacle of that arc and Dave, I know this is probably what everybody is, is looking toward. They want to be that experienced captain that has control over his life gets to choose his routes, gets to choose his planes gets to choose, you know, a lot of things based on seniority.

David Santo

Let’s talk about the 12 year captain because that confuses some people.

Paula Williams

Okay.

David Santo

12 years means 12 years longevity from new hire.

 So if you are a new hire into the airline at 27.

And you make captain ten years later at 37. You are a 10 year captain. It’s not like you do your first officer for 10 years, and then you start over as a first year captain, that’s not the way this table reads. It’s a captain with 12 years total longevity with the company.

So if you look at a 12 year captain, and, and you were to upgrade within 12 years, which I think is pretty reasonable right now within the major US airlines. You’re looking at being what, 39 years old and you’re, if you look at this line all of the airlines are hovering right around that $200 an hour level.

So you take that times 1000 hours a year, it’s $200,000 a year in in pay. That’s not including profit sharing, retirement all the other benefits. So for the nay sayers that are out there, and they, they are, they’re on the blogs and they’re on the websites, that say this isn’t this isn’t the way it is.

This is what the current airline industry pay is, it’s gone up a lot over the last few years. And I mean, that’s, if that doesn’t excite somebody with a return on investment. You make $200,000 a year before year 40.

Paula Williams

Mm-hm.

David Santo

So let’s just run the math, you’ve got 25 years left, at $200,000 a year. Well, every ten years you’re making $2 million, so you’re making $6 million from the time you’re 40, until you’re 64. That is not a bad earnings, especially when you look at you’re getting no less than 12, and more likely at this point in your career 15 days off per month.

Paula Williams

Great, and just to explain some of the, the letters and numbers at the bottom of this chart. That’s the airline and then the aircraft type so, you know, if you’re kind of debating between aircraft types, it looks like the pay is really, really similar between an A320 family or a V737 family aircraft.

It’s just a, a question of which airline and, and where in the world you want to fly.

David Santo

And, and I agree with that, that’s right. The, the A320, the Airbus, and the Boeing fleets are narrow bodies.

So a lot of the narrow bodies are very closely tied together. When you start getting into the wide bodies you start seeing a little bit more variance because of the size of the airplane, but this is a narrow body captain. This isn’t even your gross earning potential, and if you’re at American, if you’re at Delta, if you’re at United, this isn’t even looking at what wide-body captains make.

Again, gross earning potential is well above this if you go to an airline that has widebodies.

Paula Williams

So you could take one step above this, and we don’t have that chart, but you know, that would be a a, a difference of possibly I don’t know if you know the numbers off the top of your head for a wide body captain, but what the rate would be for that?

David Santo

You know, and I don’t know those numbers off the top of my head, I would anticipate it being about $50 to $75 an hour more.

Plus international override. So you’re looking at north of 250, close to $300 a hour. So you know, close to $300,000 a year, with the international override gross earnings.

Paula Williams

Right, that makes perfect sense. All right one more slide and then we will start to get into the, the questions and this is kind of about the quality of life. The sick vacation and, and PTO, which is part time off, or paid time off.

And most of them have some combination of sick and vacation time available. And looks like Jet Blue’s the only one that does the paid time off, which means you could use it for either, that time that you have?

David Santo

Yeah, I think that’s what the chart is reflecting.

Paula Williams

Okay, excellent. So you know, a lot of people are concerned about the flexibility that you have as an airline pilot. And it looks like you get quite a bit of, of, of vacation and personal time with most of these airlines. And, of course, then you also have the benefit of being able to go somewhere to suspended right.

David Santo

Well, that’s absolutely right. I mean, the career I’ve heard a lot of people say well, you know, the career isn’t as glamorous as it used to be. It’s no longer the days of PANAM and TWA and I would agree with them. However the earning potential, the quality of life the effort that’s been made by the professional pilot organizations to refine the quality of life, this is just a great profession to get into.

And it’s getting even better. So, you know, I have to laugh sometimes and pinch myself. Because here I’m already getting 12 to 15 days off every month. Which is in most occupations completely unheard of, making a six figure income, and then I get to take vacation. So if I want to combine my vacation, I can take one, sometimes as much as two months off.

In addition to my 12 to 15 days off per month. So I would say that the flexibility, the quality of life, the pay, the airline industry, if you have a passion for flying, it’s the whole package. But it’s got a lot of variables, and those variables are gonna be based on where you live.

Whether you have to commute to work or whether you can be reside in a base. Residing in a base means that your days off, you’re not commuting, increases your quality of life. There are so many variables here to make airline industry even better for you. But I think if you showed this to most people outside the aviation industry, they would be wow.

Now, there’s a reason why we get this. We’re gone away from our families a lot, so on the 15 days that we work per month, or 18 days, depending on your schedule, you’re gone away from home. A significant portion of that if you don’t live in base.

And so the airlines recognize that and they are trying to get you more time off at home with your family on the days you do have.

Paula Williams

Right, at home with your family, or you get to take your family some really cool places, because you can use some of those benefits. That most of the airlines have. And I, I know, Dave, you’ve taken some really fun vacations with your family.

David Santo

Well I have. I mean, every, every yeah we take family vacations, we use our travel privileges. And then the airlines reciprocate. It’s a program called fares where you can fly on other airlines. At a significantly reduced cost on standby. Now it’s standby, and that discourages some people.

But I’ll tell you what, we’ve had some great adventures, that we would have never been able to, really do or justify, had I not been in the airline industry. We’ve gone to Europe. We’ve gone all over Europe. We’ve gone to, Central and South America. And, I think that’s just a wonderful benefit.

I, I was just sharing before this program that my daughter, who has travel privileges, was able to do a weekend trip to, to Texas, to visit a girlfriend. Those types of opportunities that your family gets to enjoy is really priceless. I’ll share one more with you in a previous job I got hired with a major US legacy carrier and I wasn’t even out of initial training yet.

When my mom and dad decided to take a trip to Paris, France. To, it was a pretty proud moment for me that my mom and dad finally got to reap a little bit of the reward of helping me to pursue my aviation career.

Paula Williams

That’s fantastic. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? I mean, to have those moments with your, your family when you can do what everybody wants to do and, and make everybody happy, so. That doesn’t happen very often. [LAUGH].

David Santo

Well, when sometimes at the airline industry because it’s so readily available to us, we, we sometimes take it for granted. And we don’t talk about that being a benefit, but it certainly is. If you’re a person who likes to travel. And if you’re a person who doesn’t want to sit at a desk job, nine to five, Monday through Friday, grinding it out in front of a computer or a phone.

This is an occupation that allows you to do a lot of travelling, work flexible hours. See a lot of the world and get a lot of cool benefits.