[xonev]

I have a friend who's a beginner pilot for a regional airline (American Eagle). He doesn't fly more than 80 hours a month and he only gets paid for the hours he's actually flying, but he has to be on call a lot (sometimes on call in the airport). And yeah, he makes like $20k a year, I think.

He was so upset with the airlines that he quit (also trying to save his marriage). But he loves flying so much that he went back to the same airline, and had to start over again at the bottom of the seniority ladder.

He says that flying is so much fun that he just thinks it's great that he gets paid to do it instead of having to pay to do it, ha. Still, though, he's enrolled in classes again so that he won't have to pay off his student loans because he can't afford the payments.

[seanmcdirmid]

After he got some experience, he could come to China. They are paying major dollars for pilots right now with enough experience to fly a 737 or 320. There are serious shortages in the world that many of the pilots flying within China (and other countries in Asia) are not from Asia.