Copilot assists or relieves the captain in the operation of the aircraft.
Second Officer/Flight Engineer assists in flight operations and sees that the mechanical and electronic devices of the aircraft are in perfect working order.
These positions are extremely limited and competitive. Often, the carriers' requirements for flight time and equipment necessitate a military career. In addition, airlines prefer individuals having a college degree or equivalent. The necessary flight time can sometimes be earned by working with private or corporate aircraft. Newer, smaller carriers generally do not require the same amount of experience as the major carriers do.
Cockpit jobs are the most glamorous (though the flying assignments to exotic points in Europe and Asia are few and far between, and short hops around the United States are more typical) and well paid (salaries can reach $165,000), but they are also the jobs that exact heavy demands on lifestyle. "You get up early, wait around the airport, sleep in midday in a strange hotel," said a spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which represents 43,000 pilots at 44 U.S. commercial airlines. "Pilots tend to be health conscious, you have to take medical exams once or twice a year, and your career can end with a wrong wiggle on an EKG."
There is an oversupply of pilots now, exacerbated by the collapse of Eastern Airlines, which left about 7,000 pilots unemployed. ALPA calculated an 8 to 9 percent unemployment rate, which is "terrible when you consider that if you want to stay in your career classification, there is no place else to go. It's not like computers the skills of a pilot are not transferable."
Seniority is precious, it not only affords the highest pay and preference for aircraft, routes, and schedules but also ensures the highest position and privileged status when a carrier has to furlough pilots. Consequently, people usually stay at an airline until their mandatory retirement age of 60. This is not a burnout. Field pilots are passionate about flying and do not leave their positions unless forced out for medical reasons or by furlough.
Historically, airlines have been reluctant to hire pilots in their thirties because of the enormous investment in training. In the 1980s, however, when pilots were in large demand, carriers did hire older people, even some in their fifties as well as some women (about 1,000 pilots are women).
The military used to be the primary source of airline pilots, but it is less so today. Currently, many pilots start as private pilots and become instructors in order to log the hundreds and hundreds of hours needed to qualify for an air taxi operation and then for small regional or commuter airlines. After a few years and accumulated flight time, they can go on to larger regional carriers and finally to the major ones. The career path is made easier due to strong alliances, even ownership relationships, between the major and regional carriers (American Airlines, for example, owns American Eagle).
Although cockpits have become increasingly computerized, flying itself has not been made any easier. Automation reduces much of the work load, even enabling airlines to eliminate the third person in the cockpit, the flight engineer. However, due to overcrowding at the airport and in the sky and to pressure by airline companies to increase efficiency, flying has become more difficult.
The best source for cockpit jobs is the Future Airline Professionals Association (FAPA), which publishes a Pilot Directory of Employers with salary information, projected demand, requirements, and contact information.
According to FAPA, 123 airline companies, with combined fleets of 6,301 aircraft and a total of 68,447 pilots, hired more than 7,700 pilots in 1990 at an average annual starting salary of $23,381. Despite the slow start to the decade, FAPA projects that airlines will hire 52,000 to 62,000 pilots by the year 2000. The directory also lists opportunities for 45 helicopter operators and 289 Fortune 500 companies maintaining private planes. Another good source of where jobs are is the Air Line Employees Association (ALEA).
Most travelers fail to appreciate the great responsibility for passenger safety that flight attendants have and the intense training that these key flight crew members must undergo. American Airlines, for example (which looks for public contact work experience and an educational background in English, psychology, public speaking, first aid, language, and home economics when evaluating candidates), gives a five-week training program at American's Learning Center, Fort Worth, TX. Immediately following training, new flight attendants are assigned to a U.S. city (such as New York City or Chicago). Seniority determines flight assignments.
Being a flight attendant is more of a career now and one that is no longer confined to women. Whereas stewardesses (as they were called) used to have to resign after marriage and/or pregnancy, today many married women and even mothers continue to fly. While it is possible to work out schedules that allow you to be home almost every night, many flight attendants prefer the excitement of long distance travel.
When TWA was hiring flight attendants recently, an ad exulted how "a career in the sky is like none on earth." Its minimum qualifications stated that you have to be at least 18 years old, a high school graduate, and between 5'2" and 6'2", have weight proportionate to height, and vision correctable to 20/50 or better, be a U.S. citizen or have a permanent resident visa, be willing to relocate, possess excellent communications skills and be able to attend tuition-based training.
The airlines employ 95,489 flight attendants. In 1990, some 14,176 flight attendants were hired at an average starting salary of $12,000. By the year 2000, FAPA projected that 100,000 flight attendants were hired.
Operations Agent. Computes the weight and balance of the aircraft so that baggage and cargo can be properly loaded to balance the aircraft also schedules aircraft work crews and coordinates information for the passenger service employees, provisioning department, and flight crews. By U.S. scheduled airlines about 8,500 operations agents employed and earn salaries of $14,000 to $33,000, according to ALEA.
Flight Dispatcher. Authorizes all takeoffs of aircraft and monitors a flight's progress to the destination by radio, also helps control the entire daily flight schedule of an airline, taking into consideration weather as well as problems with aircraft, flight crews, destination runways, and passenger/cargo/fuel loads. Prerequisites for training positions are college mathematics, physics, and meteorology. The 5,400 dispatchers currently employed earn salaries of $22,000 to $45,000.
