Airfarewatchdog.com has a running series of interviews with airlines personnel and in this interview they speak with a regional jet pilot. For anyone who’s ever wondered what these pilots lives are like this shares some great insight.
Here are some of my favorite questions:
Is it true that you get paid less than some flight attendants?
Yes, but it depends on the airline. Most of us are doing this because we have a passion for aviation and plan to move up in the industry. We do not plan to fly 50-seat regional jets all of our life. While the hefty salaries of experienced pilots may not stay as high as they once were, we are not doing this for the pay. We earn experience by flying regional jets and that experience will help us fly for larger airlines with mainline aircraft where the pay is higher.
Is it true that you sometimes sleep in the airport?
There have been times when crew scheduling has us operate flights into cities that arrive after midnight and depart around 4-5 am. In these instances, it makes little sense for us to take a shuttle to a hotel, check in, sleep for only a few hours, and then have a wake-up call an hour and a half before departure. What ends up happening is that we have “quiet rooms” in some terminals with La-Z-Boy style loungers, pitch-black surroundings, and absolute quiet. We get more rest knowing that we are at the airport, but it never qualifies as sound sleep. The media likes to make it seem that we slurp coffee in the airport bar all night, but we do have a place to sleep. It is not entirely restful, and our schedule only allows for one of these on a multi-day trip, but it does happen. This is becoming rare, but it happens. We will have more extended rest periods built into the trip later down the line.
Why do pilots have to go through the same security checks that passengers do? Isn’t that counter-intuitive?
That’s exactly what we think! If we have the controls of the aircraft anyway, it makes more sense to ease the lines by clearing pilots in advance. Some airports have a test program and waive us through (Baltimore has this in some terminals for example), but others are still struggling to implement it. For now, we must go through the same charades as passengers except it really is pointless for us.
The interview continues with more great questions. Check out the full thing here.
Photo: Flickr
