Freelance writer and editor Mark R. Twombly is also a contract pilot in Southwest Florida.
The letter was addressed to the registered owner of the airplane that I fly for hire. It was refreshingly neat, error free, and at one page plus résumé, properly brief. The writer explained that he is an entrepreneur and MBA, but he had recently made a dramatic career change to aviation professional. That could mean pilot, first officer, some ground-based position, or a combination of the three, he said. It sounded like he was motivated—the résumé told of a fast-track approach (11 months) to earning the requisite FAA pilot credentials up through a commercial certificate with multiengine and instrument ratings. He had even acquired a bit of experience working with a charter operation, although apparently not as a pilot. However, in terms of the bottom-line qualifications to get paid to fly—total time with solid multiengine experience and, preferably, turbine time—he was still pretty wet behind the ears. Getting more of that precious experience was the reason he was writing.
It was a boilerplate letter that the author apparently was sending to an FAA list of aircraft operators in the area. Despite the shotgun approach, I admired his gumption—that is, until I got to the part where he said he wasn’t interested in getting paid to fly. He openly stated that he had done well in his entrepreneurial life, and therefore he is in a position to work for no compensation.
That did it for me. He wasn’t just willing to fly for free, he was pitching himself as a permanent nonpaid employee. In my mind he did not even rise to the standard of the T-shirt proclaiming that the wearer will “Fly for food.” Based on his letter, he probably can afford to dine out every night. Why fly for food? He compounded the insult by stating the obvious—an operator could reduce aircraft operating costs by hiring him, thus avoiding (eliminating?) a salary.
Good for him that he has done well, but what is not so good is that he is aggressively pursuing a slice of what little flying work there might be these days—not by underbidding pilots who really need the dough, but by blowing them out of contention. I wonder if the people and companies that were paying him big money when he was toiling away at honest entrepreneurial work ever had an opportunity to replace him with someone who begged to work for zero compensation. Too bad this pro bono publico pilot didn’t decide instead to become a Wall Street CEO.
The other evening I had another such encounter of the discouraging kind. I ran into a guy I know whose son is a captain for a major airline. Dad beamed as he told me how his son had just checked out on a business turboprop. I wondered if that meant his son had been laid off. “He hasn’t been furloughed,” he said, reading my thoughts. “He’s just doing it for extra work.”
Extra work? I didn’t know such a thing existed anymore, at least not in aviation. Things are bad enough without pilots who already have great jobs rooting around for the few crumbs that might go to those who really need the work.
Of course, the aviation industry has been written on the backs of pilots who will work for ridiculously low pay because that’s the only way they can fatten up their thin logbooks and qualify for a decent job. It’s always been the case, too, that some high-seniority types with too much time on their hands will spend that time nibbling at other for-hire flying jobs.
Unfortunately, the root cause of both of these problems—pilots who work for free, and well-paid pilots who take part-time flying jobs—is not treatable. It stems from a love of flying. Once smitten, we’re sunk. We’ll do almost anything to stay close to our loved one, even if it means working for free. And, even if we have good work, we want more.
That may be an explanation for the sometimes-irrational behavior of pilots, but it’s hardly an excuse. I don’t know of many professions where people offer to work for free, especially one that requires so much time and money just to earn the basic qualifications and that involves so much potential risk.
I can understand the working pilot who takes on part-time jobs just because he or she is bored with flying the line and likes to fly different stuff. I can understand it, but in an ideal world the many business aviation pilots who are losing their gigs would get that work first.
I do not understand how someone who calls himself a professional can unabashedly offer to work for free. It’s an alarming new take on the lamentable tradition of new entrants to aviation—flight instructors, principally—agreeing to work for less than they are worth just to get the experience.
When I began flying for hire I remember a friend giving me a bit of advice. “I don’t know what you plan to charge,” he said, “but if you lowball your rate you cheapen the profession for everyone. Charge what you are worth. Your clients will get what they pay for.”
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