0:07

Max: James O'Neill. He is the lyrical gangster of all things aviation, job related.

0:13

Welcome back to the show, James. James: Thank

0:17

you for having me. Max: The James: Thank you for having me.

0:20

Max: The airlines have done it. Somebody has said the F word.

0:26

James: You know what, the difference between a depression and a recession is, right?

0:30

Max: No. Dylan: Uh oh. James: Recession's.

0:34

When your neighbor loses their job. A depression's when you lose yours.

0:38

Dylan: Ooh, Max: Pilots around the country are shaking in their roper, black, shined up boots.

0:45

Nobody knows what to do. We've, we've come to you, our diamond dog, uh, in the business.

0:52

So tell us James: So quick. So quick poll.

0:54

Do you guys think they should be panicking? Dylan: Well, I think I,

1:00

to put it in context, Max: if you're in the bottom couple percented spirit, I'd be pretty,

1:05

I'd be pretty concerned, but, James: All right.

1:09

Why would you be concerned? Max: well, there's no need to panic.

1:12

Listen, we're pilots. We don't panic. We, we react.

1:15

So, uh, no one should ever be panicking.

1:19

You may be changing your strategy, perhaps your outlook in the business or

1:25

maybe what your plan is, but panicking is, uh, not warranted in any sense.

1:31

James: So this is, there's a lot of stuff going on right now and

1:35

there is a lot of news coming out basically almost daily at this point.

1:41

And it's, it's really jerking people around 'cause you're getting.

1:47

Basically two weeks ago, I aero announces, Hey, we're ceasing operations.

1:50

A week later, UPS gets this brand new contract and they're gonna hire 300 pilots

1:54

and they haven't hired anybody effectively in the past year and a half, two years.

1:57

And then like three days after that, spirit's furloughing.

2:00

So if you are somebody that this is, this is kind of your first ro I I

2:07

get, everyone says, like, you know, Hey, I went through Coronavirus, but

2:10

everybody's bailed out for Coronavirus. So that's not really a, a fair comparator.

2:14

That's not, that's not a 2008 recession.

2:17

That's not September 11th. That's not the Gulf War one.

2:21

That's not the 87 stock market crash. That's not deregulation.

2:26

And the key difference between every one of those events that I named

2:30

and this event is every one of those previous events, coronavirus the

2:34

2008 Great Recession, September 11th, Gulf War one, the 87 stock market

2:39

crash passenger demand dropped.

2:43

Every single one of those, the furloughs were because passenger demand dropped.

2:50

The only number people need to be tracking right now is the TSA passenger numbers.

2:55

And if you take a look at them, we are right back to where we were in 2019.

3:01

If demand is there, if passenger demand is there, if people want to

3:04

get on airplanes and go flying, that means there's a job for you to find.

3:11

2001, there was no job in aviation.

3:14

You were, I mean, when I got laid off in, in 2010, I got turned down

3:22

from, uh, a Verizon store for selling cell phones 'cause they didn't

3:26

have enough retail experience. And I had a flight school turn me down.

3:31

'cause I didn't have enough dual given I was an instructor at Riddle.

3:34

I was a part 61 instructor. I had flown to two different regionals at NetJets at that point, and I was on

3:39

the safety committee of the Union at NetJets, but I didn't have enough dual

3:42

given time, so I couldn't teach in a 1 72.

3:46

Now what we're talking about is folks are going, I don't

3:50

want to go be a regional pilot. don't want to go to NetJets, I don't want to go to Flex Jet.

3:58

I'm gonna have to wait to get an interview at United Delta or American United.

4:03

Delta and American are only hiring for retirements, right?

4:10

That's the conversation we're having right now.

4:12

And the reason why people are panicking is really because for a

4:15

majority of the people, they're not greedy, they're not stupid, they've

4:19

just never been through this before.

4:22

I. And so they don't know what to expect.

4:25

They don't understand why it's happening, and they don't know what to do Next.

4:29

Wheels Up just announced this past week, Hey, look, we're

4:33

stopping new hire classes. They're saying to people in interviews, Hey, it, you know when you get to a

4:40

check ride and, and you bust the maneuver and they go, you have two options.

4:43

You can continue to check, right? Or you can stop. Yeah.

4:46

Wheels Up is, is basically doing the, we can continue the interview, but I

4:50

don't have a class date to give you or we can stop right where we're at, which

4:53

is super transparent and amazing that a recruiter would actually say that, right?

5:02

I mean there, for the recruiter it would've been a lot, a recruiter, it'd be

5:05

easier to just go through the interview and go, Hey, let me, um, let me, uh,

5:10

let me just kind of run through the show that way there's no conflict here,

5:13

and then we'll deal with it in the end. So, so people are seeing this news up and down and up and down and up and down

5:20

of a little bit of positive and a lot of, bit of negative and a lot of, bit

5:23

of negative, gets a lot of people on the internet whipped up and freaking out.

5:27

So they're focusing on what they think's gonna happen next

5:30

instead of just getting a job. Dylan: Hmm.

5:36

Okay. So James, for those of us that are listening right now,

5:42

that actually are at Spirit. Which, you know, it, it's hard to know how many end up pilots will

5:48

end up being furloughed because of attrition and everything else.

5:51

They're saying it's, you know, what, 260 right now, they do have to

5:55

take some action right away, right? talk to those folks for a minute and, and say, okay, if you are actually

6:01

potentially on the chopping block, what should I be doing right now?

6:05

James: Okay, so 2010.

6:08

I'm in recurrent ground school, and this is not an exaggeration.

6:13

The ground school instructor is handing out the written test

6:15

for us to take on the last day. And all of a sudden you hear, you know how, like how you go to a

6:20

baseball stadium and you have a wave? Well, instead of people throwing their hands up, it was, what the

6:24

fuck is this going across the room? And it was 'cause we all got E, about three quarters of the class

6:29

got emails that said you are being laid off school instructor

6:33

was not told that was happening. So now he's confused.

6:35

He hands the test go, Hey everybody, just take the test. Lemme go get some executives, take the test, hand it in, they come down, right?

6:42

So you get that initial shock, you get that initial shot of adrenaline,

6:46

that initial shot of cortisol, you're panicking, your brain is cutting out.

6:51

You're going, how am I gonna make my mortgage? How am I gonna pay down my student loan debt?

6:55

What am I like? All these thoughts are going through your head in that immediate moment because you

7:00

weren't like, even at NetJets, we had, you know, spirit has their issues for

7:05

different reasons that NetJets did, but. Basically, at the time I was sitting at home, not flying, right?

7:11

We were parking airplanes be, and so you, you kind of had an idea, but there was

7:17

all this up and down messaging from the

7:19

union and the company that was like, we might pull it out.

7:21

Hey, there were voluntary, uh, voluntary leaves.

7:26

There were things folks at the company were doing, and on the union side,

7:29

they were trying to save our jobs. So look, looking back when you're outside of it, you go, Hey, I

7:34

was definitely gonna lose my job. But when you're in the middle of it, you're basically holding

7:37

onto as much hope as you can that by some power vested in me.

7:41

Somebody's gonna come in and save the day and and you're gonna keep your job.

7:46

So even though in the back of your mind, and then for some folks in the front of

7:49

their mind, they, they had an inkling or an indication or a pretty good idea

7:53

that they were gonna get laid off. It still hits you like a ton of bricks when you actually get the message and you,

8:00

'cause were they gonna lay off a hundred? Were they gonna lay off 700?

8:03

So there's some people right now. That are taking a deep sigh of relief and going, oh, it was only 260.

8:09

That's not me. And there's somewhere around 260 people that are going,

8:14

crap, I gotta do something now. Now we've been working with Spirit folks prior to this.

8:20

So there's a lot of guys that are already a month, 2, 3, 4 months

8:23

ago, got the ball rolling, right?

8:25

So they're ahead by a certain amount and then you get the people that have been

8:30

kind of surviving on Hopium that, hey, this is all gonna figure itself out.

8:33

They're the ones that kind of go into full on crisis mode, if that makes sense.

8:37

Dylan: Yeah. James: So, so the first thing you have to do, or that I would

8:42

recommend they do, is you have to get your support structure together.

8:45

Because what happens is when you get hit with that stress, not to get too

8:48

techy or too, um, sciencey with it, but the front or part of your brain,

8:53

the executive functioning portion that just shuts down, you can't make

8:56

decisions 'cause you're overwhelmed. So it could be a husband, it could be a wife, it could be a

9:00

mentor, it could be a friend. I recommend one max two.

9:04

You don't want to go out and get 50 people 'cause you're gonna get a bunch of

9:07

conflicting opinions, but you need one or two people that can hold you accountable

9:11

to what you're gonna do every day. Somebody that calls you at nine in the morning and makes sure you're

9:15

actually getting up outta bed. Somebody that, and I know this sounds really, really stupid, but

9:20

it gets hard to take a shower. It gets hard to shave your face two, three times a week or however

9:25

many times a week you shave. Right? Um, it gets hard to, to force yourself to go outside.

9:31

Right? In the United States, anytime you meet someone, you get asked three questions.

9:36

What's your name? Where are you from?

9:38

What do you do? Option number three, if you don't have an answer to that

9:42

question, it's a problem, right?

9:44

And if you say pilot, people go, who do you fly for?

9:47

That becomes a complicated question when you're getting laid off.

9:50

So a lot of people avoid going outside, they avoid talking to other people.

9:54

'cause there's a lot of shame, there's a lot of embarrassment that goes into this.

9:58

Um, when I got my layoff notice, I hate asking people for help.

10:03

I hate it. Hate it. I don't want to inconvenience them.

10:07

I don't wanna bother them. I don't want to dump my problems onto their shoulder.

10:11

But the reality is, when you run into a situation like this, everybody

10:17

and their mother wants to help. But you have to be the first one to reach out and ask, right?

10:22

Because every one of us that has a job that's not getting laid off right

10:25

now has either been laid off before, so we understand what it's like, or

10:29

we're sitting there going, shit, if it was me, I hope somebody would help.

10:32

Right? There's a lot of people trying to put positive vibes into the universe,

10:35

'cause they may need some of those to come back to them here in the future.

10:39

So that's, that's step one. two, um, is to start gathering information.

10:48

Uh, LinkedIn is a really good resource for that. Facebook is as well.

10:51

And if you just give me, uh, a second, I'll give you the kind of the groups that

10:54

I go on, on Facebook in terms of if folks wanna get information or give information.

10:59

Um. But, uh, airline pilot interview questions and answers.

11:04

The guy who's the admin of that group just started a post yesterday and said,

11:06

Hey, let's help spirit pilots out. Everybody that's hiring list the company name that's hiring, and how

11:10

many, you know, what's going on there. Um, you have Ttag, you have the pilot network.

11:16

Um, you have, um, you know, you, you have a couple of different groups.

11:22

Uh, some people are, there's a Reddit flying group.

11:25

Uh, but those are groups that you can go on to start getting information quickly over who's hiring.

11:28

'cause that's really what you need to know. You don't want to, when you get a furlough notice, you don't wanna waste

11:33

energy applying places that aren't gonna consider you, because for the most part,

11:39

most of these people need a job, right? Some people are gonna be ahead financially.

11:43

Some people are gonna have money in their savings account. But for a lot of people, especially folks that are just getting

11:47

started out, especially if they have student loan payments,

11:50

they're not really that far ahead. They can only afford so many weeks or months out on the street not making money.

11:57

The advantage today versus a Coronavirus or a 2008 is there are jobs to get.

12:05

Like you can sit at home and kinda wallow in the grief of it all you want,

12:09

but there are jobs to get right now. That's a waste of time.

12:11

It really is a waste of time. Like I said, when there's a demand issue, that becomes a lot more problematic.

12:18

'cause now you're thinking, do I have to leave the industry? Do I have to go back to school?

12:20

Do I have to get a different certification? If you are a pilot right now, there are jobs for you to get and there's actually

12:26

a decent amount of jobs for you to get. You may have to wait a little longer than you wanted, but pretty much every

12:32

regional on the face of right now is looking for direct entry captains.

12:37

This is where we get into the ego component, and this is where

12:40

it becomes really important to have the right people around you.

12:43

The biggest barrier most of these people are gonna struggle with is their own ego.

12:48

And I say that as someone myself, that when I got laid off.

12:54

You realize, shit, I was flying jets for, you know, it was 2 20 10, so

12:58

I was only making $90,000 a year. You know, it's basically poverty level wages, you know what I'm saying?

13:03

But you know, you go from making $90,000 a year and you walk into a

13:07

cell phone store and somebody goes, you don't have enough retail experience.

13:10

You don't know what to do. Right now people are, you know, some people are going, should I go to a

13:19

regional as a direct entry captain? Is that gonna hurt my resume?

13:22

'cause I'm taking a step backwards. Okay.

13:25

I was a spirit fo. Should I go to, to, to a NetJets or should I go to a flex jet?

13:31

Or, or should I go to, um, to a regional airline as a first officer?

13:37

Is that gonna hurt my resume? Some people are gonna, should I go become a flight instructor?

13:43

Here was the thing that I didn't understand until after

13:46

I went through this process. I get laid off from net Jets.

13:49

I. I went in and I interviewed for a job flying A TBM as a mentor pilot.

13:57

I got shot down and it was between me and another guy.

14:00

The other guy got it 'cause he went, I'll be on call 24 7 365.

14:05

I went, I want 24 hours heads up notice on a trip.

14:08

It was the only difference. Um, they hired the other guy.

14:13

He severely regretted being on call 24 7 3 6 5.

14:16

Doug, if you're listening to man, sorry you had to go through that buddy. Uh, but when I went through that interview, I got

14:23

shot down for the TBM job.

14:26

But I did so well in the interview that the guy that owned the flight school

14:30

and management company said, would you like to be the director of operations?

14:33

So when Doug showed up to work two weeks later, I was his boss.

14:39

Right. When you go into an inner now.

14:43

Absolutely not. I listened Max: at Dylan: we have a trip in James: I I, I, yeah.

14:47

Max: ASAP, James: then, and then that's exactly what happened.

14:50

Doug and I were talking about how to get Doug outta being on call 24 7

14:53

365. 'cause it felt bad for him. Doug's actually a great guy.

14:56

He really is. Um, but, you know, imagine Doug's surprised.

14:59

He walks into the office and he goes, what do you do? Because we saw each other on the interview, right?

15:03

So I, he walks in the office, he goes, what are you doing here? And I'm like, Hey man, I'm your new boss, right?

15:07

So the point is, when you go and interview for a job, right?

15:12

I understand it's different when you're interviewing for an airline job, but there's people that gonna interview for non airline jobs too.

15:16

They're gonna go into corporate operators, so on and so forth. You're not necessarily just interviewing for the job that

15:22

was listed on the job description that you're sitting in front of.

15:24

They, they might have other positions for you.

15:27

We just, um, we're hiring a bunch of folks right now.

15:30

Uh, I just had to hire some new administrative staff and I, um, we're

15:35

hiring some folks to fill out the applications for clients on our behalf.

15:40

I had people apply to that administrative role.

15:43

That we're way, way, way, way, way over qualified for it.

15:48

And I called them up on the phone. Some of them are once again probably listeners and said, Hey look, I

15:52

think you'd be a better fit over here versus there, I had one person

15:55

interview for the admin role did so well, I had a higher level position

15:59

that they're gonna be better for. You never know when you walk into an interview what other

16:04

opportunities they have. Do not walk in the door selling yourself short thinking, I'm

16:09

just interviewing for this slot. There could be three or four or five other positions.

16:14

The easiest example of that, think about an executive jet management.

16:17

Think about a Solaris, think about a jet aviation. You go in, you interview that account doesn't like you, that

16:21

chief pilot has 10 other accounts. Do not walk in that door thinking you're just interviewing for the

16:27

job, you're interviewing for. There's other opportunities out there.

16:30

Dylan: Yeah, that's a good point. James: and, and so when you start thinking about that, right, that's where

16:36

you start getting the energy to fight. But the biggest thing that I didn't understand.

16:41

Until after I went through this process is I, I got a job, a job

16:46

opportunity flying a citation in Ohio. I got a job opportunity flying, uh, phenom in the Middle East, and I got a job

16:52

opportunity being a director of operations for a flight school in New York City.

16:55

Um, the jet job in Ohio, great.

16:58

But they weren't flying a ton, so I didn't know if I was

17:00

gonna be on the chopping block. Two months later, the one in the Middle East, Eileen basically

17:06

said, Hey, look, you want to go move over to the Middle East? Make sure they have direct deposit.

17:08

I'm not going over there with you. So there were some family things where it was like, Hey, that's not gonna work.

17:12

Dylan: Hmm, James: Um, some of the countries I was gonna be operating in and out

17:17

of didn't, probably weren't gonna be too friendly to people like Eileen.

17:20

Um, and the whole concept of her walking three steps behind me and always

17:24

agreeing with everything I say, didn't really fit her personality either.

17:26

So, um, so, so I took the job running the flight school, and honestly, all of my

17:33

friends, or I can't say all, but a lot of the people that I, that I worked

17:37

with at NetJet said I was an idiot. They were like, dude, you went from flying a jet to being basically

17:43

a glorified flight instructor. It's gonna look horrible on your resume.

17:46

You're gonna have a bunch of serious time in your resume.

17:48

Um, you know, you, you should be applying to these jet jobs.

17:52

They ended up sitting at home collecting unemployment for about six or nine

17:55

months and then became regional fos. So now they had this six or nine month gap on their resume and then had to go

18:00

take basically the same effectively entry level job that they would've had to take

18:05

if they just did it right off the bat. I went straight to the flight school.

18:09

When I applied to every other place after that, they went, whoa, you went from being

18:14

a niche that's pilot to going to be a director of operations of a flight school.

18:18

Your egos in check. We'll give you a shot.

18:22

People respect that. They respect that willing.

18:25

So like if you're a spirit guy and you decide to go be a direct entry captain

18:28

at a regional, or you decide to go be a regional fo or you decide to go be an

18:31

FO at a, or you even decide to go be a flight instructor, people respect that.

18:36

Work is work. I don't care what the title is.

18:41

Everybody that's gonna interview you after you take that job

18:44

knows the sacrifice you took, the sacrifice you made to take that job.

18:50

going to make you stand out and they're going to respect you for it.

18:54

No one's ever going to look down at you for taking work.

18:58

Don't limit yourself. Don't hold yourself back.

19:01

Don't let your ego get in the way of you being successful, right?

19:07

The least amount of employment GA gap you can have, the better.

19:11

So if Spirit lets you go and the only thing you can get is a

19:15

job flight instructing, take it.

19:19

You're better off being a flight instructor than someone sitting at home.

19:23

That's the biggest thing that I didn't, I just didn't fully appreciate until I

19:26

went into interviews after that and people were like, whoa, you didn't sit at home?

19:32

And I was like, no. Why would I do that? I. Well, here's a stack of 500 resumes of people that did that, and that's

19:37

why you're sitting here right now. So,

19:42

Dylan: And I did the same. You know what I did that, uh, James got laid off 2009 and waited.

19:49

Tried to find another job, had a great interview with a, um, flying,

19:54

could have been a CFI in a king air, like, which would've been good

19:57

time, you know, great experience. Ah, but I've been flying

20:00

James: yeah, it's not a jet man. you can't do that

20:02

Dylan: gonna look weird. People are gonna question my move.

20:04

And so I passed on it. And, you know, looking back, that was a big mistake and waited for

20:11

the next good thing to come along. And you're right, man, if you're out there and you're working,

20:15

something is gonna come to you. But it's gonna be a, a, a long, hard and painful process, uh, on your bank account

20:22

and your ego if you, uh, if you hold out for that, uh, golden opportunity.

20:27

James: The other thing with the work. Is, it gets you in front of live human beings.

20:32

And it gets an answer to that question number three of what do you do?

20:35

Um, and, and you'd be surprised how people underestimate how important

20:43

it's to be around other folks. Uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna modify this story a little little bit to, to

20:48

keep the person anonymous, Uh, but a client went in to go get a haircut and

20:54

they're sitting there talking to the barber and barber, what's your name?

21:00

Where are you from? What do you do? I'm a pilot. Oh, that's weird.

21:04

The next person I have that I'm cutting their hair is Pilot two.

21:11

Our client goes, well, you know, oh cool.

21:14

Where do they fly? I don't know. So as they're getting their hair done, the next person comes in

21:19

and the barber introduces them. Chief pilot at a major airline.

21:24

Chief pilot goes, Hey man, uh, pleasure to meet you.

21:27

Do you, uh, you wanna stop on buying and get a tour?

21:29

Right? You don't know where you're gonna run into people.

21:34

You don't know who you're gonna run into. You don't know.

21:37

And I'm from Jersey, so who's cousins with who?

21:39

Right? You know who's, know who, who's somebody's, you know,

21:43

godmother, godfather, whatever. Right? You need to be out in front of people.

21:49

I don't care if you take a job on a ramp at an FBO, you're gonna run into pilots.

21:54

Like, and, and the thing, the great thing is people don't have to do that right now.

21:59

It's not coronavirus, it's not 2008.

22:02

They, they're gonna get a flying job. But they do have to get their mind wrapped around the concept of a job is a job.

22:10

Go take one that keeps you in a cockpit. Most of the jobs right now, I, I, I can't say all, but a vast majority

22:17

of them pay a really good wage.

22:21

Right? When I, I was, when I left Net Jets, I was making 90.

22:25

When I took the flight school job, I was making 60.

22:28

Everyone else focused on the $30,000 pay cut I took.

22:31

Meanwhile, they're on unemployment making $1,600 a month.

22:36

But you know, when you're on unemployment, you can sit at home on the couch.

22:40

You don't have to face anybody, right?

22:43

It's, it's, it's more comfortable when you're in that situation to

22:47

just collapse, crawl into a hole and don't come back out again.

22:54

But yeah, you, you probably, you might take a pay cut, you might not.

22:58

It depends on if you go in and be a direct, you might take a pay increase

23:00

if you go become a direct venture captain, depending on where you were and how much you were flying.

23:04

It doesn't matter. Find something that you can afford to live your life on.

23:09

Put it on your resume. If you can't afford to live your life on it, go take the job

23:12

that pays you the most amount of money and cut your expenses back.

23:16

It is what it is. But the sooner you get work on your resume, the sooner you're gonna

23:20

get a better job that pays more. It is just how it works.

23:26

Max: So what's, uh, so what are you hearing James, right now amongst,

23:30

you know, with United saying they're, they're just kinda give

23:34

us a rundown of what, what, what the latest is you're hearing from

23:37

James: the biggest difficulty, and I'm, look, we're talking to everybody, right?

23:41

So I, I'm not gonna, I can't give the entire breadth of

23:47

conversations that we're having, so I'm gonna generalize this a bit,

23:50

um, and not go into each individual company, but, but when you take a look

23:55

at the major airlines, what folks are losing sight of is the hiring that's

24:01

happened over the past two years. Where you're effectively seeing, you know, between United, Delta, American,

24:08

and Southwest, it was around seven, 800 pilots a month that were getting hired.

24:11

When you factored in Spirit Frontier, UPS, FedEx Atlas, that

24:16

number jumped up to about 1100. Right? So that's why you're seeing 12, 13,000 pilots being hired per year.

24:22

That, which by the way is an astronomical amount of hiring.

24:25

Like, I mean, that's the next closest year was like 5,000.

24:30

Like it's not, that was a ludicrous amount of hiring, right?

24:34

That, that said that people were like, oh, this is gonna go on forever.

24:36

You're like, the day that started, we knew that wasn't gonna happen.

24:39

Um, that massive hiring was made up of two different reasons.

24:44

One was growth, right?

24:46

Airlines were, they're taking on new airframes, they're growing their

24:49

operations because of passenger demand.

24:55

The second, uh, variable was, um, was retirements.

25:03

Well the growth is slowing right now. Not because of demand, but because of aircraft availability.

25:09

Well, they still have to hire for retirements. So folks are looking at like, oh my God, the United United's investigating

25:17

the FA or the A's investigating.

25:19

Well, yeah, they gotta do something 'cause the media keeps picking it up.

25:22

But you frigging Southwest had a cowling blow off an airplane the other day, right?

25:27

You think Delta hasn't lost a tire off an airplane anytime soon.

25:30

Like there's nothing going on there that's not going on anywhere, everywhere else.

25:35

It's just, what did the media catch onto right now?

25:38

So people are blowing that outta proportion.

25:40

There's then, you know, you see stuff like United goes, Hey, we're, we're offering

25:45

people, uh, voluntary leaves of absences.

25:48

They've done that every year for the past 15 years.

25:52

It's a one month optional. Hey, if you want to go take a a early summer, go knock yourself out.

25:57

Well, because that's being taken in context of everything

26:00

else that's going on. It's, oh my God, are they gonna furl? So the fa iss looking into them and now they're doing a leave of

26:04

absence, are they gonna furlough? No.

26:06

I mean, like, no, it's just, it, it happens every year.

26:12

So, so people are taking information out of context and then they're, they're, um,

26:19

correlating it and going, oh my God, this is an indicator that things are going bad.

26:23

United is still hiring. American is still hiring, Delta is still hiring.

26:28

Right. Southwest, not hiring, but we won't know till the end of the

26:32

year what that looks like for them. Southwest is in a unique position in that they've gotta be very careful on what

26:38

Boeing is and is not able to deliver.

26:40

Right. And Max, as you may know, uh, Southwest Post apparently like to work.

26:46

So you start stacking too many pilots sitting around and nobody can get

26:51

additional trips and pick up stuff. It's gonna, it's gonna piss people off.

26:55

So, so, so Southwest has their own unique situation that

27:00

they have to look at, right? But Americans hitting peak retirements next year it's over 700.

27:06

United's just starting their acceleration towards peak retirements.

27:09

They peak out in 2028. They still have to, even if they don't grow, if they take zero Boeings,

27:15

zero air buses, they still have to hire for the retirements regionals.

27:23

Last year, 500 jets parked.

27:25

They're parked 'cause they don't have enough captains.

27:28

Guess what they need? Direct entry captains.

27:30

Each of the regionals needs about 20 per month minimum.

27:33

And they've been getting like five 10. They need direct entry.

27:37

Captains NetJets, they've got something like a two year backlog on pe on clients

27:42

they can take, or owners they can take on. Sorry, NetJets, I apologize for calling clients, um, because of, you know, just

27:49

how quickly they can get pilots and how quickly they can get aircraft deliveries.

27:53

Flex Jet, they're hiring. When you take a look at places like Wheels Up, right?

27:58

If, if somebody's not getting, if they're not getting growth right, then they've

28:05

gotta look at how many people are leaving. Not as many people are quitting Southwest, not at, not as many people are quitting.

28:11

Wheels up. Not as many people are quitting Frontier.

28:14

So guess what? If they're not growing and nobody's leaving, hiring slows, not, oh my God.

28:24

They're slowing hiring, they're getting ready to furlough.

28:26

It's, oh my God, the next tier up isn't stealing their pilots anymore.

28:30

They don't have to hire. So you've gotta find somebody that's either expanding they have

28:38

jets that they can get right. Corporate, they have jets they can get, those guys are

28:42

hiring for expansion, right?

28:45

Then you take a look at who's hiring for retirements.

28:48

There's gonna be Legacy Airlines, part 91, corporate flight departments.

28:51

People are still aging out and leaving as long as the passenger

28:55

man stays there, which it's there. You can go look at the TSA numbers.

29:00

As long as the passenger man stays there, hiring's not going to stop.

29:06

And when you take a look at things like Spirit, it'll, if I remember, if

29:10

I understand correctly, and I apologize if I get this wrong, but they're

29:13

deferring aircraft deliveries, right? Don't

29:16

worry, somebody's gonna take those and then they're gonna expand and

29:19

they're gonna hire for that like. It.

29:21

Take a look at what happened with FedEx and UPS. FedEx gave up, uh, gave up the USPS contract.

29:26

UPS took it. They're not hiring 300 pilots, right, like in this market, because

29:31

the passenger demand is there. One company's loss will be another company's gain.

29:37

This is not 2010, 2008, 2001.

29:41

This is not a meltdown. It's a slowdown.

29:44

It is a crisis of expectations.

29:48

People expected that 1100 pilots were gonna get hired per month to

29:52

infinity and beyond, and now were only gonna get 500 a month hired.

30:00

This jobs good ones.

30:04

Like Max: James. So you're saying we should not panic, is that what you're saying?

30:08

James: I'm saying, if I lost my job tomorrow, I would go apply and

30:13

be a direct entry captain, and I would hold my head up high and I would sit in the.

30:16

Max: another one. I see. James: E Exactly.

30:19

I would. And, but, but I have the benefit of, I, we, I told this, I told this story

30:26

on a, on an episode with you guys a while ago, but I, I went through the

30:29

experience when I got laid off from NetJets, I had an identity crisis, right.

30:33

That I, I really, I cannot describe how embarrassing and

30:40

shameful it felt to not have a job.

30:45

We're out to dinner, me and my parents and Eileen grammar school teacher walks

30:49

in that I haven't seen in 15 years. But because of the way I look, you can, I pretty much look the

30:53

same way I do when I was five. Um, and, uh, he, Hey James, how's it going?

30:58

What are you doing? Uh, you know, and visit my parents. Oh, cool.

31:00

What, what do you, what do you do for work? I'm a pilot.

31:03

Max: Or I'm a James: laughs and goes, you're not a pilot.

31:07

Max: not a pilot. James: So, so I had to go through the experience of

31:11

sliding under the table, right?

31:13

And, and basically trying to pick myself back up and figure out who the hell am I?

31:18

And, and it took probably about two or three years to where I realized,

31:22

oh, who I am as a person is different than what I do for a living.

31:26

That sounds really, really simple, but as a guy that owns a career development

31:30

company, right, who's helped all these people get hired by, by Legacy

31:33

Airlines who's helped all these people. Uh, become directors of operations at part 91 flight departments, who's helped all

31:40

these people and negotiate their salaries. Right? Um, and if I got laid off tomorrow, I'd go straight to regional and be a

31:45

direct entry captain, and I'd be fine with it because my responsibility

31:52

is to provide for my family. It doesn't matter.

31:58

That silly little hierarchy that we have as pilots and airplanes and

32:03

airplane, if you're getting paid to fly it, congratulations, enjoy it.

32:06

And if not, you'll do something else till you can.

32:09

But right now you don't have to worry about that. That's all in your head.

32:14

I, if I had to get on a regional jet, or I had to get on name x, y, z

32:20

company that, that pilots make fun of because it's, it's beneath them, right?

32:24

I'm not, I'm not holding my head low.

32:27

I. I've got a job, man. I'm flying airplanes.

32:29

I'm gonna take that opportunity and if I'm flying with folks that are younger,

32:32

that less experience, I'm gonna sit in the cockpit and mentor the crap out of them.

32:36

At least make it fun and enjoyable for me. Right?

32:39

Like you can take these opportunity, and I'm not trying to sound cheesy with this,

32:43

like I'm saying, this is somebody that had to go through it and figure out how

32:45

do I, how do I take a situation that isn't what I thought isn't what I wanted, and

32:50

make it so that it's enjoyable for me? Yeah.

32:53

Start mentoring people. Get involved in the union, right?

32:56

Go, go take a corporate job and go learn the customer service aspect of it.

33:00

Go learn how to deal with conflict with people, and you're

33:03

gonna learn something new. Enjoy it. But you're gonna be flying airplanes.

33:05

You're gonna be paid well to do it. That's what you should focus on.

33:09

Not, oh my God, I'm flying a King Air, or I'm flying a citation,

33:11

or I'm flying a regional jet. Not an Airbus. It it, it's okay.

33:14

Don't worry. You'll get back into one if you want to.

33:17

You might not want to, but if you do, you'll get back into one. Dylan: Let's take a time out from our conversation to talk about

33:22

another friend of ours, Timothy P. Pope. Who's a certified financial planner dedicated to guiding professional pilots.

33:28

Through smart financial planning, whether it's saving for

33:31

retirement investment management. A seamless military transition.

33:35

We're strategic tax planning. Tim is your trusted financial partner.

33:40

Join Tim, as he leads engaging discussions on personal finance

33:44

strategies for professional pilots on the pilot money podcast.

33:48

Timothy P. Pope helping professional pilots make the most out of life

33:54

Okay. Uh, what about like, just in general, if you're at Spirit and you're seeing

34:00

downgrades, you're seeing it, maybe you're not gonna get furloughed, but

34:03

you're more like, man, am I in a, a place that is, has potential in the long run?

34:09

Or how do you process that?

34:13

Um, kind of as, as a, I don't know, what would you call a pilot

34:17

that's remaining on the list, but sort of like questioning things.

34:21

James: Yeah. So I apologize for all the people that I may piss off by saying this, but

34:26

you're lucky when you get furloughed because they made the decision for you.

34:32

You, you're not having to sit there and agonize, should I stay?

34:34

Should I go? So, so on and so forth, and, and you're getting your head start on whatever

34:38

the next place is you're gonna go to. It's that second and third wave that really takes it in the

34:42

shorts, because guess what?

34:45

The first guys that got furloughed, those are now your captains.

34:47

They're now senior to you wherever you're go. 'cause you're following them afterwards,

34:50

Right. So. When I got laid off from from Net Jets, it was like, man, this sucks.

34:56

Like, those guys are lucky. And you're like, no, because you got laid off.

35:01

You're going someplace new, you're gonna be making decent money, flying airplanes,

35:06

gaining seniority, so on and so forth. They're, they're losing seniority.

35:10

Guys that get down. And the downgrade, when you furlough, there's typically downgrades too.

35:14

So you're talking 50% pay cuts.

35:17

You're talking about getting displaced from your base.

35:19

Now you gotta commute. Now you're talking about costs going up because you, um, you're

35:24

having to get a crash pad. Your flying goes down, so you're not getting as much, you know, their

35:29

block hours are going down, so you're not gonna be getting as much, um,

35:32

I'll just call it overtime, just across the board to make it easy.

35:35

Uh, everybody, every company has a, you know, a TFP green slip,

35:38

whatever you wanna call it, right. Um. So, so the folks that are left behind have a little bit more of

35:44

an agonizing decision because it's like, should I stay or should I go?

35:47

The guys that got cut loose, they're gonna end up with jobs.

35:50

They're gonna, it's gonna be okay. Um, so if, if you're a guy that gets, that gets cut, congratulations.

35:58

Now you're start moving in that next direction that you want to go

36:00

Dylan: world's your oyster. Yeah. James: Well, and the, and the benefit that I had, so when I got laid off, I

36:04

made a commitment to myself that I was gonna run 110% in another, in as many

36:09

different directions as I could, because I wanted to get myself into the best

36:13

possible position that when NetJets called me back, I could make a decision.

36:18

Is NetJets the better option or is where I'm at the better option?

36:21

But if you don't go 110% to get yourself into the best position

36:25

that you can, you can end up fooling yourself that when spirit calls back,

36:30

you go, oh, this is a better deal. It might not be.

36:33

It's just, you just didn't push it hard enough to get yourself something better.

36:37

So I ended up not going back after furlough. It ended up being a better deal where I landed.

36:41

I, um, for me and my family had a better quality of life.

36:46

I was making more money. I had way better health bene, I had better benefits, like it, the whole thing.

36:50

I ended up in a way better position. So I, I went to the new thing that I went to is where I stayed.

36:55

A lot of my friends went back. Just depended on, on, on, where you ended up.

37:00

Dylan: Yeah, max gave me that advice. I remember when I got let go from a, um.

37:04

Company. He's like, you, he basically was like, treat that job as it's dead.

37:10

This is for a corporate operator maybe, where it's not so much

37:12

like seniority based in furlough, but he's like, set that aside.

37:16

That's behind you now. Don't be like, well, they could call back

37:18

James: Now it's over. Dylan: And maybe just like it's over move

37:22

James: they're dead. Dylan: and it, and if they call you back who you can deal with it at that

37:27

point, but don't, don't go sitting there.

37:29

And, and I think that's, that's solid advice for, like you're saying,

37:33

you've just gotta press forward as much as you can and you'll see

37:37

James: I, I interviewed at a, uh, I, I'm not gonna name the company,

37:41

but I interviewed at a company right after I got laid off from,

37:43

from NetJets for a flying job. And I made it all the way to the last stage and they said,

37:48

okay, we're gonna bring you in. It's a formality. We're going to introduce you to the, to the pilots.

37:53

And then from there, pretty much job is yours. I got a call, no joke.

37:57

Seven minutes later it said, Hey, just kidding. We changed our mind.

37:59

We're going with another guy. I called my mother.

38:02

She took every one of their products out of the house, threw 'em in the garbage.

38:05

Those products have never been in the house ever again. When someone shoots you down or lets you go, they are dead.

38:11

It's over. Let it go.

38:13

Move on. Right? They on to this day, that happened 15 years ago.

38:19

There is not one product from that company in my parents' house.

38:22

She will not even if they give it to her for free, like on an airline, she'll throw it in the garbage.

38:28

They're dead. It's over. Dylan: That's good advice though.

38:32

It really is. James: And I won't name the company 'cause I don't want to kill the

38:35

stock, you know, with the listener group banning them. You know what I'm saying?

38:40

Dylan: Uh, James, we've got some flight advice from some listeners.

38:43

Anything else you want to hit? Any other pearls of wisdom you wanna dispense, uh, to the listeners

38:48

before we jump into, uh, advice? James: Can you hear me okay?

39:03

Okay. Uh, the big thing is look, that support structure is really important.

39:07

Um, you gotta have people around you that are forcing you to get up every day.

39:11

Uh, for me, that's Eileen.

39:15

Like I said, some people it's their parents, some people it's a husband, some people it's wife.

39:17

But you have to have someone that holds you accountable every day to get up, put

39:21

your clothes on, get up, take a shower, put your clothes on and do something.

39:24

Um, look, obviously if they need help with resumes, if they need help filling

39:28

out the applications, if they need uh, strategy questions, give us a call,

39:32

um, we can handle that aspect of it. But honestly speaking, the first thing is to get that support structure

39:39

in place so that you keep one foot in front of the other every day.

39:44

'cause you're gonna have highs and you're gonna have lows. And the rejection sucks.

39:46

That's the hardest part to get through. Not everybody was as fortunate as me.

39:49

They weren't born with red hair and had to date in high school.

39:52

So they're not used to rejection. Right. But I don't care how many, like, it hurts to get rejected.

39:59

That's why, that's why when we're working with folks, that's why they

40:02

have a phone number they can call. 'cause when they get that rejection.

40:06

If their husband or wife give 'em a hug, we give 'em a hug and go, Hey,

40:10

look, here's what you can do next. Here's how to do this.

40:12

Here's who to talk to, here's yada, yada, yada.

40:14

So I can't overstate how important it's to have that support structure in place.

40:19

You, you really need people that you can call when you're panicking to help keep you putting one foot in front of the other.

40:26

Max: I've been doing that for Dylan for years. James: Exactly.

40:30

Dylan: he's my rock. He's my rock.

40:35

James: The butter for your roll. Dylan: Um, but I'll tell you what, it is important and, and like what you

40:41

said before, James, not seven people,

40:45

one or two, because you, you're, you'll get a million different

40:49

pieces of advice from pilot. You know, every pilot loves to dispense advice and none of them necessarily

40:54

are wrong or bad, but you just kind of gotta pick what you're gonna do

40:58

and then, and then move forward with James: the, the easiest way to explain what it's like to

41:02

get too many mentors early on. So you imagine you're gonna go for your private pilot certificate

41:09

and every lesson you use a different instructor on landings.

41:13

It uh, it's not that the instructors are giving you bad techniques.

41:15

It's you gotta pick one pony and ride it. Once you get on track, once you get to that point to where you're

41:22

getting ready to solo, you have a second person step in and check you.

41:24

You don't have 10 other people step in and check you.

41:27

It's the same thing with mentorship in life. If you grab too many mentors, right?

41:32

It's just gonna get confusing. 'cause everybody's gonna have a different take.

41:36

The other thing that's really important, and this is something that we do when

41:39

we talk to folks, you wanna make sure the mentors that you seek out are not

41:42

coaching you to do what's right for them. They're coaching you to do what's right for you.

41:47

Right? So magically if you grab somebody that flew for X, y, Z airline,

41:51

they're gonna talk you down that path to go to that airline, right?

41:55

Because it's what they understand. You need somebody who, who can listen to you.

42:02

Repeat back to you what you said in their own, in their own

42:05

words, and then go, okay, here's the strategy on how to do that.

42:09

It may not work for them, it may not work. Meaning the person that's mentoring you, it may not work for them personally.

42:13

It may not work for their family, but they're guiding you down the path

42:17

that works for you and your family. When I got laid off from Net Jets, I didn't have kids so I could

42:21

relocate anywhere in the country. I had a bunch of friends that did have kids.

42:25

They couldn't, if I got the wrong mentor, they were gonna

42:28

coach me on how to stay local. I spread out my, my job prospects and ended up applying to jobs in other

42:34

states, and that's how I ended up getting jobs much quicker than everybody else.

42:39

So just kind of keep that in mind. Think about it like grabbing a new instructor for each landing lesson.

42:45

It's not gonna go well. Dylan: Oh, that's a good analogy.

42:49

Okay. Speaking of mentorship and advice, uh, we're gonna have

42:53

two mentors help you here. We've got Raven Careers and Eagle Careers, uh, standing by to

42:59

James: Oh, oh, my biggest competitor. Dylan: you're one of your biggest competitors.

43:03

We're looking to turn a profit this year. James: Guys are stealing market share left and right

43:06

from us Dylan: exactly, yeah. Okay.

43:08

I will read this one and then, um, we'll take advice from Max and from James.

43:14

This will be good. We'll get two instructors from one Landing. Um, okay.

43:17

This, this, this comes from, uh, a Jet Blue Pilot says, uh, currently working

43:23

for certain Blue Tail major airline. I have eight years of seniority and I'm a recent Airbus captain.

43:28

I live in base. The job has been awesome and I'm happy here.

43:31

Overall day-to-Day life is great.

43:34

The past couple of years, however, have been filled with uncertainty.

43:37

Recent blockage of the spirit acquisition has left us in an unknown state.

43:40

Couple that with the news of Corporate Raider, Carl Icahn gaining

43:43

seats on our board and aircraft delivery and Pratt engine issues.

43:47

There is. Understood fear and doubt amongst the pilot group.

43:50

We're seeing stagnation in seniority and career progression compared

43:53

to other airlines out there. In the past few years, I've watched friends and colleagues

43:57

leave for the legacies. And seeing them rocket up the seniority list.

44:01

I try not to compare myself to others and while I'm happy for them, it's

44:04

definitely a bit deflating hearing. Your buddy who just got hired at a legacy is already a wide body fo or captain in

44:09

their base of choice, almost out of the gate or another is celebrating their

44:13

profit sharing check and buying a boat. Ha.

44:15

While here we're talking about displacement and lack of profitability,

44:19

my question is approaching age 40. Would it be ridiculous to give it all up, start over at the bottom of a huge

44:25

seniority list like aa, United or Delta?

44:28

Purely because of company uncertainty. I live within three hours of NYC.

44:32

Being in the junior base would definitely help my seniority, but the idea of

44:35

driving to and B, based in the NYC area sounds like an absolute torture.

44:40

I also will absolutely not commute. My fear is missing out on the hiring boom now and going down with the

44:45

ship if things don't turn around. The lack of good news during the booming time in the airline market has us all

44:51

concerned for our futures thoughts.

44:55

Max: FOMO strikes again. Dylan: That's right.

45:00

James: This is a risk discussion, so I'm gonna talk about it from that perspective,

45:04

uh, because there's a lot of people that are having this conversation.

45:07

So you have a, a, uh, let's, I don't know, use for example, JetBlue, right?

45:13

So you, uh, per se, let's say you have a guy who's an eight year captain.

45:16

Um, so when people run the calculus on this, they typically just run

45:22

it from the perspective of what's the chances I get furloughed.

45:25

And if you go back to the conversation we had a little while ago about spirit,

45:28

while that sucks, that's kind of the easier of the positions to be in

45:32

'cause somebody else made the decision. For you as an eight year captain, if JetBlue does a furlough, do

45:37

you get downgraded to fo, do you get displaced outta your base?

45:40

Are you now, like there's a lot of other liabilities that somebody as an eight

45:45

year captain at JetBlue has, right?

45:48

You can use, uh, a round number of 20%, right?

45:53

That's, that's what they assume, you know, in terms of furloughs.

45:56

But what they don't then do is go, okay, 20% downgrades, right?

45:59

So in this case, spirit used a little less than 10% of their pilots.

46:03

Is, is, is roughly, I think what that number works out to be.

46:06

And if you notice the amount of downgrades that Spirit is doing is basically

46:10

equivalent to the amount of furloughs. So now you run that calculation, okay, I'm an eight year captain.

46:16

Probably not gonna get let go, right?

46:18

There's no guarantees in life, but as an eight year captain, the

46:21

probability that you're gonna get low, get let go, is, is much lower.

46:25

Okay, cool. So now what does my life look like if I get downgraded?

46:29

Okay, if I was gonna get displaced, where would I be displaced?

46:31

Two, what do I think the amount of flying would be?

46:34

I, I would be getting so on and so forth.

46:37

Okay? So, so that's, that's the one side of the equation risk wise.

46:42

The other side of the equation is, okay, so where do you want to go?

46:45

Right? So if you're taking a look at Delta, if you're taking a look at American,

46:49

if you're taking a look at United, and I'm just using those three right

46:52

now because Southwest isn't hiring right, and I'm just gonna stick with

46:56

passenger carriers to make it easy. Um, now you take a look at, okay, well Americans hitting peak

47:02

retirements next year, right?

47:04

Um, Delta's hired a lot of young folks.

47:08

If United's not even hit their peak retirement yet,

47:10

they're accelerating into it. Well, you can start to see that your risk profile is gonna be a little

47:15

bit different each carrier you go to. Right.

47:18

You could go to a United, effectively go into a direct entry captain

47:22

role back in the New York and he said he lives in New York.

47:25

Right. Dylan: No, I'm thinking he actually lives in Boston

47:29

James: Okay. Yeah, that's a Dylan: said New York was a three hour drive.

47:32

James: Yeah, that's, yeah. He's not in DC Um, so, uh, that, that's the tough one, right?

47:38

'cause the guys that live in Boston, right, that's a crappy commute.

47:42

And, and I mean, the drive sucks.

47:45

You're not getting on a ferry and the airline commute sucks and it's so expensive in that area.

47:50

The country, you're probably not flying to Cessna back and forth between Logan and, and JFK.

47:55

Um, I guess he could live in upstate New York as well, if he's in upstate New York.

47:59

Driving on the Jersey side down to Newark is a little bit easier.

48:02

Just haven't been from that area. But an anyway, um.

48:06

Yeah, you, you have that, you have that ability to, to potentially make a direct

48:11

entry captain where you're not gonna take a pay cut, um, your schedule cuts.

48:16

Like you're not gonna take as many cuts in quality of life, pay

48:19

and schedule by making that move.

48:22

So it just boils down to how they perceive the risk of, of if everything went bad

48:28

and they got downgraded, would they rather live with that or would they rather live

48:33

with, Hey look, I want to go make the jump and there's gonna be a little bit of, of

48:37

discomfort, but maybe a bid wide body.

48:40

Right. And you're doing less of that commuting and, um, so it, does that make any sense

48:46

in terms of how to look at that risk Max: Yeah, it's just, it's an impossible, it's just such a hard

48:49

thing to evaluate because you're trying to, you're trying to make guesses

48:55

on the airline industry, which is historically very difficult to predict,

48:59

James: That's the exact opposite way of doing it. So people are trying to gauge it based on the win.

49:05

I would encourage you to gauge it based on the loss.

49:07

'cause the, you can't predict the win, you can't predict what's

49:10

gonna change in the future. But you can take a look at, if I was gonna risk losing this by staying

49:16

versus risk losing this by going, which one would be more palatable?

49:21

Which one would be less uncomfortable? Which one would my family tolerate better?

49:26

And that's, that's the pony you ride at the end.

49:29

Look, none of us will know until we retire and you look backwards as to what

49:32

would've and would not have worked out. Max: Yeah.

49:35

James: But it's, it's really what are you, what are you willing to risk losing?

49:39

And if you live in Boston and you go, the commute's really valuable,

49:43

the not commuting's really valuable. And I'd rather be a senior first officer than a junior cap, a senior first officer

49:49

in, um, Boston than a junior captain in New York than, than that, than stay there.

49:55

And if they downgrade you, they downgrade you. It's still gonna be better than the alternative, but it gets you out.

50:02

Having that clear y gets you outta that.

50:05

Yeah, but my buddy's over here as a captain doing X.

50:09

No, you're, you're exactly right. Commuting to an airport, you don't want commute to flying an airplane.

50:13

You don't wanna fly to locations you don't want to go to. But other than that, you're right.

50:17

And you're gonna see, just real quick, you're gonna see now that everything's

50:21

slowing down a bit, there's gonna be a lot of buyers remorse, people that took

50:24

certain jobs because everything was moving fast and everything was going up

50:27

into the right and, and now what people are left with is a boatload of money

50:31

to do something they don't want to do. And it turns out the money doesn't doesn't cut it.

50:39

Max: Yeah. And then I think. I was just gonna say, once you make that call and you sit down and you

50:44

evaluate your options and, and you decide, okay, this is what I'm gonna

50:46

do, then stick with the decision.

50:49

Don't look back, don't quit looking, you know, and reevaluating it a hundred

50:52

times because you're just gonna drive yourself nuts unless there's something

50:55

substantial that changes, right. The, the, the thought and then maybe it's 10 to reevaluate, but, but I think that's

51:01

what a lot of people do is they're like, okay, I'm staying, I'm gonna do this.

51:04

And then a couple months later they're like, oh, did I make the right decision?

51:07

Like, should I, you know, and, and I think that's James: the, the clar, the clarity on the why drives that, right?

51:13

So, so I know for me, I know the schedule is really important.

51:20

I know having weekends off routinely is very important.

51:23

Um, I know that the healthcare and the retirement are really important.

51:27

Um, and I know that the hours that I fly are really important.

51:31

That's why I fly King Air, right?

51:33

I, I hate to break it to you guys. I'm not, not at a legacy airline 'cause I can't get there.

51:39

I'm not, not in a corporate flight department 'cause I can't get there.

51:42

Right? Like, I'm fortunate that I have a lot of people that are willing to vouch for me.

51:47

I'm flying when I'm flying because I've made the decision that that's

51:49

what I wanna fly where I wanna fly. Not 'cause I can't go do something else, but.

51:54

Every time one of you guys goes, look at what I made last year.

51:58

I do have to ask myself why am I doing what I'm doing?

52:00

And when I go, all I gotta do is go, Hey Max, uh, how many weekends?

52:04

You know, did you do this or did you do this?

52:06

Or did you do this? And when you say, no, I can sit right back down and go back

52:10

to my potato salad in peace. Um, if you don't have a clear why, when somebody else goes, look at this

52:18

shiny thing over here, it could be pay, it could be schedule, it could be

52:20

quality life, could be airplane type. I don't care what it is, right?

52:23

Look at this shiny thing over here. You're gonna chase it like a dog chasing a school bus

52:28

because you're not clear on why. Anything you do, I don't care what it is.

52:33

Any company you go to, you're giving something up to be there.

52:35

You're sacrificing something to be there. You're compromising on something to be there.

52:40

Understanding why you're compromising, that really helps

52:42

you not having heartburn every day, swallowing the decision you made.

52:48

Dylan: Okay. I want to, I want to look at a different aspect of it.

52:52

Um. Elon Musk, one of the

52:56

James: Oh, this is gonna be good. Dylan: yeah, he developed like self-driving and all this stuff

53:00

is because he said being stuck in traffic is like soul sucking.

53:04

Like there's something that just destroys you. And I can compare that to being in a small or shrinking base that I was

53:16

there in Los Angeles, you know, in this base that was like trying to hold on.

53:20

But they were like always contracting and cutting lines

53:23

and cutting, flying and stuff. That was soul sucking because it was like, every month it was like

53:28

more bad news and more bad news. It's like, yeah, I live here and I drive, you know, 10 minutes

53:33

there, but the deal just keeps getting worse and worse and worse.

53:37

And that to me can make it really hard, especially when there are people that

53:41

are, are moving up in the other direction.

53:43

So I think moving backwards can just be so difficult.

53:47

And IE, even if you have clear on the why.

53:51

Yeah, man, that can be really hard.

53:54

The stagnation. Does that make sense what I'm saying?

53:57

James: It does if the Y's not strong enough

53:59

and, and, and, Dylan: The why better be really strong if you're gonna be in a stagnant situation.

54:05

James: it does because, um, so look, I'll just take the job that I'm doing.

54:10

I mean, the pay increases that you guys have been seeing or that airline

54:16

guy's been seeing versus what we, I mean, it's not even the same ballpark.

54:19

Like, you know, we're talking $5,000 pay increases versus $50,000 pay increase,

54:25

like, you know, $5,000 pay increase versus a hundred thousand dollars pay increase.

54:28

I mean, it's not even in the same stratosphere.

54:32

And, and if you don't have a strong why that's going to eat at you.

54:38

I mean, that's literally going to suck the soul out of you.

54:42

But. When, when you get that burning feeling in the dead center of your chest, right?

54:49

And, and you, you wanna walk into a room and just scream at somebody, right?

54:55

And then you go, okay, why am I doing this?

54:59

And for, for, and I'm not being cheesy when I say this.

55:01

For me, it's a family decision. Like it's really important to me that I get to eat a certain way, that I get to go

55:10

to sleep at the same time every night that I wake up at the same time every morning,

55:13

that I fly the same schedule every day. It's very predictable in terms of what days I work and what days I don't work.

55:20

It's very predictable about what happens when something in the economy goes bad.

55:23

We just keep moving on. Right? And when I look at that, and then I can have conversations with Eileen

55:29

and go, what is that worth to you?

55:33

And she'll go, okay, good. So let's talk about if you went to.

55:37

X, y, Z company. Yeah, you would have all this over here, but you would give up all that.

55:41

And here's what that cost is gonna be for us at home.

55:44

If you, if, if the Y is 'cause the color of the paint on the tail, it's gonna hurt.

55:51

Right? If, if there's, if there's other things that they're not giving you or other

55:57

things that you're not clear on that they're giving you that are important.

56:00

Yeah, you're right. Man. When stuff starts sliding downhill, it hurt.

56:03

'cause you, 'cause you, you feel like you're dressed up

56:06

like a rodeo clown every day. Like you're the joke of the room.

56:09

Everybody else is doing great and you're the idiot.

56:12

But the reason it feels that way is because when somebody goes,

56:15

I'm making $500,000 a year, you go, yeah, that's right.

56:19

And I wake up at 7:00 AM every morning and I eat a nice warm breakfast and

56:24

I just got my cholesterol checked and it's healthy 'cause I haven't

56:28

eaten in a terminal in 15 years. That's not good enough for you, then what I'm doing isn't the

56:36

right thing for you, right? That why has to be strong enough that when somebody turns to you

56:41

and goes, I'm smarter than you. They're not literally saying that.

56:46

But when someone goes, I'm making a half a million dollars a year, look at this schedule.

56:49

What's effectively being received is, look how much smarter I'm than you are.

56:53

Look how much more sophisticated I'm than you are. Right?

56:56

The ability to work through that is, I appreciate that and here's wh

57:00

here's why I'm doing what I'm doing, which relates to, here's why what

57:03

you're doing isn't right for me. Dylan: That's well said.

57:09

Anything, anything to add, max? Max: No, I think he, uh, summed it up.

57:15

That's good. Dylan: Find your why.

57:18

That's good. James: It w So in interview prep, that's why so many people

57:22

have been having trouble. 'cause he's like, why do you wanna work here? And they're like, I don't know.

57:25

Because they were chasing status. Shiny airplane, bigger airplane paycheck, right?

57:30

And then you get there and you're like, oh, great, I'm here.

57:33

And then something bad happens and you go, shit, why am I here?

57:36

Yeah, you're about to find out right now. Dylan: all right.

57:42

That was flight advice with the guru.

57:45

What did you call 'em? The lyrical gangster of, I don't

57:49

Max: know. I just, I Dylan: was. Max: remember. It James: gang, the lyrical gangster of career counseling

57:54

Dylan: There it was, James: and strategy.

57:56

Dylan: dropped some rhymes. I have like five different sections.

57:59

I'm gonna click off into little videos. James. That was great.

58:02

Um, folks know that if they need your help, especially if they're,

58:06

uh, looking at maybe a furlough or, uh, making a pivot right now.

58:10

Uh, we'll have all of your contact information, including

58:13

your calendar in the show notes. They can click and get on, uh, get on your schedule and, uh, seek some

58:19

mentorship, uh, as we, as we mentioned.

58:22

So appreciate your time, James. Uh, anything you want to add to before we get outta here?

58:26

James: Nope. Um, I do appreciate folks reaching out.

58:28

I do. It is take, it's taken about anywhere between a week to two

58:32

weeks, again, on our schedule right now, just because of demand.

58:35

Um, do apologize for that. Uh, but, um, we're spending about 30 to 45 minutes with each person that

58:41

puts time on our calendar to talk with 'em, to make sure we understand where

58:44

they're at, what we can do to help, and what the right strategy is for 'em.

58:47

Don't spend money before you know what you're tracking towards.

58:51

It's a waste, right? You need to have a strategy.

58:53

You need to have a clear direction before you start throwing money at the problem.

58:56

So, uh, I look forward to working with you guys Dylan: Are you gonna join our book club?

59:01

James, are you gonna read chapter one of Hard Landing?

59:04

Have you James: and all that. I, so I do a nine hour round trip drive per week, so I'm

59:08

gonna start listening to it. Audio book in the car. Dylan: Okay,

59:12

good. Just, just read chapter one and then we'll, we'll discuss it.

59:16

I think you're gonna like it, Max: we James: put it on half speed.

59:21

Dylan: chapter one. Alright, that is gonna do it.

59:24

James Ode, Raven Careers. Thank you so much. Adios.

59:28

James: Thank you.