“I’ve just lost my treasured aviation job: What do I do, now?”
“I’ve just lost my treasured aviation job: What do I do, now?”
Happy New Year 2021 to all of our friends and supporters around the world.
Thanks to the current and unrelenting Covid-19 pandemic, the world is witnessing unprecedented restrictions and shutdowns in trade, industry, commerce, education and transport, to name a select few. Aviation, particularly, has been hit hard. 20/20 hindsight has taken on a whole new meaning!
Airlines have stood-down entire fleets of old and new international and domestic jet transports, such as the A380, A350, B747 and B787 and positioned them in desert airports; Loyal, long-term staff, in many categories, including senior aircrew, have been stood-down; some have even been offered voluntary and forced redundancy packages. Fleets of training aircraft stand idle.
Some airlines and many general aviation companies, such as flying schools, have been forced into administration for various reasons. Many pilots have, for the first time, found themselves considering temporary and permanent re-employment and re-training alternatives to their cherished first choice: flying. And this hurts, badly, because a professional pilot does not regard flying so much as work, but as sheer joy. The trick is to find as secure a suitable and satisfying position as possible and then embrace it, fully.
We hope, sincerely, that all who wish to may find new positions in their chosen career, by reducing to turbulence penetration speed, tightening your seat belts and riding out the rough air. This will never be just a ‘storm in a teacup‘, but it will pass.
Nevertheless, it’s always tough when this stuff occurs and I wish to offer some reassurance that, sooner or later, other doors will open for you; the professionalism, knowledge and skills that you have honed will not be wasted. Over my 55 years in the industry, when things like this have occurred, I cannot recall anyone, who was totally dedicated to the profession, failing to secure a new position, better than the last and, hopefully, in no time at all. I wish everyone success for the future.
The airline scene and flight training will open up again and when it does, there will be many gaps to fill – perhaps more than ever before. Utilise this opportune time to upgrade your ATPL theory subjects and any other related qualification; apply everywhere that is of interest to you and update those applications: every 100 hours, every specialist rating or renewal, every airplane type endorsement, gas turbine theory, (almost to what you received at Christmas and what you had for lunch yesterday!), etc, etc. Add further value to your C.V. It won’t be wasted. Any excuse to make some clerk, somewhere, re-open and update your application file and maybe remark, to someone important, “Gee, this one is really keen”: They’ll get so sick of hearing from you, they’ll offer you a job! (It worked for me, back in 1969!)
DJ Beechcraft B23 (VH-CFG) at Mangalore VIC 18 September 1965
DJ B737-838 Melbourne VIC 22 June 2009
May I commend some further reading: the blogs, https://www.jacobsonflare.com/from-our-logbooks/the-best-advice-i-was-ever-offered-by-the-best-pilot-i-ever-flew-with-captain-geoffrey-w-lushey-dfm-7-july-2020/ and
In the meantime, understand that it doesn’t matter so much when something goes wrong: What matters is what you do about it.
Don’t wait for ’someone’ to fix it: Take whatever steps you see fit, to take command of your own destiny, as soon as possible. That’s how you will survive this regrettable situation and fly further, faster and higher than ever. For what it’s worth, it’s how I survived it, in my career.
Happy Landings, everyone.
Would you care to experience that unsurpassed sense of accomplishment, derived from executing consistently beautiful landings, more often?
Read what pilots of all levels of experience have to say about the Jacobson Flare technique and the App, on our Testimonials page.
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