Turboprop Command or Jet FO

Who pays the most? Who has the stablist job? That is the questions I need to be speaking.

It it were me I would be flying the jets that is where the money is and that is where you will be getting news jobs from.

Hi Zed,

Most of us, especially pilots, love our problems illustrated in black & white...unfornately they tend to manifest in just about every shade of the light spectrum. I'm not saying this in order to get around answering your question but more as a disclaimer for my response which is the form of a true story. However, this ocurred over ten years ago, on another continent within a company that no longer exists.

Over 20 years ago one of my closest friends and I started our airline career. We were very lucky to be swept up in a wave of recruitment and both started with major airlines within months of each other.

I was quite envious of his choice. Within several years he had flown F27s, F50s, F28s & the A320. He moved to the A320 in the right hand seat and had been given the choice between A320 F/O & F50 Capt.

The A320 provided more money, more days off and a step into the world of modern airliners. Business was booming so the thought was that upgrades wouldn't be too far away. However, the general company philiosphy at that time for airlines in that part of the world was "once a captain always a captain".

Some time after his A320 conversion all the turbo props were sold. All his collegues, most junior to him, who had been turboporp captains were put through conversion IN THE RANK OF CAPTAIN onto the A320. So he in fact became their copilot.

Just to make matters a little harder to swallow, we soon found ousrelves in a global recession and all training was stopped. In my company there was not one single pilot recruited for 5 years!

The global recession eased gradually and things started to move again. Some months before his upgrade was expected to be announced the company was sold to a foreign airline. Soon after the company became bankrupt and my friend was looking for a job overseas...still qualified as an F/O but with over 7-8000 hours experience.

Things sorted themselves out and within another year or so he returned to a new airline in our home country and within another year or so he became a captain. He is now a senior TRE but his initial (second chance) command occured at least 5 years after his first opportunity to change seats.

There's no moral to the story and no easy answer. But my advice is to examine all the variables that might affect your situation very carefully.

I sincerely wish you the very best with your career. Aviation has been very good to me in my years and time seems sort things out. Having said that, I made a choice to change companies and continents for other than purely career related reasons. I also had to begin with my new company as an F/O and my new start was swiftly followed by the "crisis". Like many others in the same situation I am no longer considered as a "current captain" in this tight job market.

Life is interesting :-)