It's been a while! 2024-12-05 21:46:40 2024-12-05 22:21:11
Pilot George
142 60
1300 500
https://www.pilotgeorge.co.uk/blog/post/its-been-a-while/

It's been a while!

05 December 2024

IMG 3229

Hey there folks, how’ve you been? It’s been a while hasn’t it! 

TLDR; Still absolutely loving this job! Best decision I ever made.

I know, I know… I accept that I’ve neglected this blog over the past few years and in truth there’s several reasons for that.

Writing content that readers of this blog have become accustomed to takes considerable planning. While putting the pen to paper isn’t overly difficult, writing something I’m happy with certainly is. I’m a bit of perfectionist in that sense. I ponder over my choice of words, the way segments read and so on. Finding stuff to write about is also quite the challenge. This blog was about my journey to the flight deck and having gone on to achieve that I guess I’ve struggled to find content ideas. By all means, if you’ve got some then do reach out!

It's also worth saying that another big reason for radio silence is a desire to never put myself in a position which unintentionally raises the eyebrows of my employer or brings them into disrepute. The aviation industry is a massive one and it naturally makes the general public (and the press) quite inquisitive. Ultimately, I guess what I’m trying to say is it took a lot of time, money, and effort to get where I am, and I don’t want to undo that with a single blog post on a more technical topic or saying something I perhaps shouldn’t. I’m sure that most of you will understand that position, but I will continue to write if you desire it; though I may have to decline certain topic choices.

All of that now said, I thought it only right that I provide you with an update on how things have been going. It’s a highly requested topic from several of you, even after such a gap in content, so here we go…


Picking up from my last post…

At the end of my last post back at the start of 2022—gosh, that long ago—I’d discussed not long passing the 1,000-hour mark on the Airbus A320. I also mentioned the next step in my career being the unfreezing of my licence. I was still a Second Officer at that point too!

If we fast-forward to December 2024, quite a lot has happened. In no particular order: 

  • Passed 3,000 hours on the A320 family.
  • Full ATPL licence holder (unfrozen in February 2023)
  • Two rank upgrades
    • First Officer in May 2022.
    • Senior First Officer in May 2024.
  • Started the process towards-hopefully-moving to the left seat.
  • Hit the big ole’ 30 in March 2024. (sad times!)
  • Became a homeowner in March 2023.

It’s been a busy couple of years that’s for sure but the best news of all is that aviation has bounced back from COVID…and then some!

Airlines are chasing growth again with new aircraft deliveries, new routes, new bases, etc, and new recruits are joining all the time. In fact, based on the scale of some of the recruitment campaigns over the past year or so it seems that airlines cannot get the pilots quickly enough. In the UK we’ve seen British Airways, Virgin, Ryanair, easyJet, Wizz, TUI, etc. all had job postings on their websites at one point or another over the past year. I’ll admit that a large portion of those positions are for experienced pilots (those with at least 500 hours) but when the experienced pilots move on it tends to have an affect lower down the ladder. 

On the topic of new pilots, some airlines have also begun offering sponsorship schemes. I have no doubt that these schemes are fiercely competitive (the Virgin one I applied to years ago was!) but for the lucky few the airline funds the entire training course. This is great to see, and I hope it opens up aviation to those who could otherwise only dream. Here’s some links to the airlines in question. The schemes might not be open right now but do keep checking as I imagine they’ll return for more pilots in the not too distant future.


The day to day flying…

IMG 3643

The view of the alps never gets old!

To this day I still get sent lots of questions from aspiring pilots, parents of aspiring pilots and others just curious about aviation. It’s mad that the blog still gets so many readers even years after I qualified. I thought I would share my answers to the most common questions I receive. Here is the selection:

  • Are you still flying?
  • Do you still enjoy it?
  • Are you a few rungs up the ladder now?
  • Is the job challenging?
  • Going to change airlines?
  • Have you considered long-haul yet?
  • How is the Airbus to fly?
  • Do you fly at night often?
  • Where’s your favourite place to fly?

Are you still flying?

I am indeed. I’m still flying A320 family and it’s a great aircraft to work on. I’ve now flown 62 different A320ceo airframes, 37 A320neo, 10 A321neo and 55 A319s. Quite the number when you break it down like that but they’re all much the same operationally, albeit bigger variants. 

Do you still enjoy it?

Honestly, I don't think there's a better job out there, though I might be a bit biased. I would be lying to you if I said I enjoy every single aspect of the job though as the continued early alarms can get pretty tedious and the same is true with climbing into bed gone 3am for the fourth day on the trot.

It’s also a career choice where you just have to accept that you’re going to miss birthdays, weddings, and other gatherings! If you’ve a social circle consisting of people outside of aviation like me then sometimes you feel as though you have to be very proactive in reminding folks that you’re still about. Their default position can often be to presume you’re working, thinking that you’re unable to attend something, and therefore not even asked you to do things. I guess they get tired of the “No, I’m working that day sorry!” texts!

I take my hat off to people who do this job with children as well, it sounds like an even bigger layer of complexity in terms of childcare etc. Ultimately, like any job, there’s pros and cons, I guess.

Are you a few rungs up the ladder now?

Yep. I became a Senior First Officer in May of this year. At that time the promotion was achieved when you hit 2501 hours flying experience and have held the position of First Officer for two years. Naturally, the grounding of the airline during COVID meant it took me a little longer to get the hours required and so my up rank was delayed slightly.

Is the job challenging?

It’s an interesting question this one. When you first start an airline job it’s all consuming. Your brain is working at about 1000 miles an hour. The aircraft type is brand new, commercial flying is brand new and each airport and country has its own quirks and complexities. At the start I often found myself putting in time outside of work to review the following days airports and associated procedures. You’d get home after a shift and be absolutely exhausted, mentally. It requires a lot of energy at the start of your career to do the job well and you often lean on the experience of your colleague next to you to support your decision-making process, as the likelihood is they’ve flown into the airport you’re going to dozens of times. As you gain experience you gradually build up a database of sorts in your head and you start to know what to expect and by when. You begin pre-empting the known threats and you naturally think two, three or even four steps ahead the aircraft. As your capacity begins to expand you become more autonomous and your knowledge of the aircraft and your ability to handle it develops. The end result is that operating of the aircraft becomes instinctive and so in that respect alone, the job is not as much as a challenge as it used to be. 

Where challenges remain is often on the ground. So much stuff happens while we’re parked up and there are so many different scenarios that it’s impossible to list them all, but here’s a handful I’ve faced as part of a crew:

  • Air traffic control strikes, controller sickness, or system failures.
  • Weather over an airfield reducing arrivals and departures.
  • Passenger baggage reconciliation.
  • Lack of fuel trucks, refuelling staff, or reduced fuel availability at an airport.
  • Disruptive passenger events.
  • Total airfield closures.
  • A colleague feeling unwell.
  • Airframe icing, length queues for de-icing.
  • Being out of hours, resulting in an overnight delay down route.
  • Managing passenger expectations while we wait out delays.
  • Navigating around some of our destination airports, e.g. Turkish airports are often very dimly lit on the ground and are poorly signposted.
  • Waiting on third-party suppliers.

This kind of thing makes no two days the same. They’re all very interesting to gain exposure to though, especially considering I’m now starting to work towards becoming a Captain myself. I’m at the earlier end of that process I’ll admit, but I've gone from leaning on the experience of my colleagues to help me operationally, to now looking at their decision-making processes and asking them more non-technical questions so that I can take the best of every person and form my own mental models to aid in the next step of my career. 

If you were to ask me this same question when I eventually become a Captain, I imagine my answer will be very different again. For Captain’s the flying part of the job is largely the same, but it’s a very different role in all other areas. You’re ultimately the one responsible for every decision you and your crew makes. It’s an exciting prospect for a First Officer though: one day moving to that left seat.

Going to change airline? – AND – Have you considered long-haul yet?

At this moment in time, I believe I’m still very much a short haul pilot. Flying larger aircraft would bring new challenges as they reach far flung parts of the world and you’d also get to stop off and see the destinations too, but the truth is I’ve kind of settled in the Southwest of England now. I’ve got a home here, a partner in the midst of a PhD, and an airline that I’m happy working for. People move around for their own reasons, but it’s perfectly okay to stay where you are too. Never say never of course because who knows what’s around the corner, and if I lived near London Heathrow or London Gatwick (where most long-haul airlines are) I may have answered differently. For the time being though I know that easyJet still offers the prospect of a stable career and I could be looking at the left-hand seat in a couple of years, maybe less.

When it comes to the guys and girls I trained with out in New Zealand, some are now flying the Boeing 777 for British Airways, some chose a career path on the A330/A350 for Virgin Atlantic and a few even fly out in the middle east for Qatar or Emirates. Not everyone has moved on however and several remain with their first employer, just like I have. I might choose to join some of them in the long-haul game one day, but for the time being I’m happy where I am.

How is the Airbus to fly?

It’s a great plane to fly, though all I’ve flown apart from the A320 family are light aircraft so in that sense I don’t have anything to compare it to. I personally enjoy working on it. It’s a very comfortable aircraft for pilots. Some Captains I have flown with have flown a variety of aircraft and they also praise the A320 for its ease of operation. If there was another aircraft type I’d like the chance to fly it would probably be the Airbus A350. One day, who knows!

Do you fly at night at all?

Yes, I do, though it’s a lot less than I fly in the day because I’m an early bird and prefer working earlies. Night flying brings its own challenges:

  • A lot of darkness (of course!)
  • No sunshine to warm the cockpit as much (wear those thermal socks!)
  • Not as much to see out of the window! (need to consider terrain more!)
  • It’s when humans are usually asleep! (opposite to a typical circadian rhythm)

This said, it brings some pretty cool sights! Thunderstorms in the summer carry ridiculous amounts of energy and we’re treated to lightning shows quite often! If you’re lucky and you fly northbound you might get a glimpse of the Northern lights too, though I’ve yet to see them. Finally, it’s the stars. Nothing compares to when you are thousands of feet above the ground, way out over the Atlantic, miles away from civilisation. There are stars in every possible direction and sadly photos do them no justice.

Where is your favourite place to fly?

It depends on the season. In the wintertime the alps are breathtaking, and you can see nothing but white mountain ranges for miles and miles whereas in the summer, I love to fly down the Adriatic. Croatia’s coastline and all of its little islands are so picturesque. If you fly the same way in reverse later in the day you can see the extent of mother nature as storm clouds top out well above your aircraft. You can often see the clouds developing right before your very eyes. 


A look at the finances…

 IMG 6860

A cold and snowy start to the day.

Those long-term readers will know I borrowed a significant sum of money and took a hell of a risk trying to become an airline pilot. The risk paid off and now that I have a stable income, I’m able to chip away at the loans, slowly but surely.

I thought I’d share the progress here for you.

In total my training cost me:

  • £93,800 for the initial training (CPL/ME/IR licence)
  • £30,000 for the easyJet A320 type-rating

In total I borrowed:

  • £70,000 to part-pay my initial training.
  • £30,000 to pay for my easyJet A320 type rating.
  • £9,000 to repay a family member for his contribution towards the initial training.

As of this month the combined balance sits at £49,079. I now repay £1,650 a month which is not a small sum by any stretch and on top of that I then have a mortgage and other typical expenses to consider.

Fortunately, after several years of flying your experience on the aircraft is rewarded with a higher salary which makes all that stress during training all the more worth it. Even after paying tax, my training loans, my mortgage, my car, my phone etc, I still have a comfortable amount of disposable income. It’s a tough gig when you first start out and your pay cheque doesn’t go as far, but after a few years the career pays handsomely. 

Based on my current repayment plan I aim to be free of all training debts by the end of 2027 which is approximately 9 years after I made my first repayment. It’s a long time, I’ll grant you! My hope is more airlines come forward and pay for training for pilots as it’s absolutely bonkers to have to borrow that sort of money.

Earnings is something that is of interest to a lot of readers so I’ll take this opportunity to mention that I wrote about the topic back in 2019. In that blog post I broke our pay down into the various component parts and it’s worth a read if you’re interested in a more in-depth explanation. As you might expect, pay has increased quite a bit due to inflationary pressures and various pay deals since COVID. The table below compares salary then vs salary now. The pay values are full-time basic pay only and do not include flight pay and loyalty pay (where relevant), allowances, nor annual performance bonuses which are all extra. Pay does vary by airline and type of flying (long haul, cargo, etc) but it gives you a more up to date representation.

Rank

Annual Gross 2019

Annual Gross 2024

Second Officer

£45,228

£57,235

First Officer

£53,441

£67,629

Senior First Officer

£65,604

£83,020

Captain

£108,203

£136,929


A few stats…

Some of you asked for some statistics from my logbook since joining the airlines: 

  • Aircraft Flown
    • 55 A319 aircraft.
    • 62 A320ceo aircraft.
    • 37 A320neo aircraft.
    • 10 A321neo aircraft.
  • Flights
    • Total A320 Flights: 1368
    • Furthest Distance Flown: Bristol - Sharm El Sheik.
    • Shortest Distance Flown: Liverpool - Isle of Man.
    • Longest Flight Time: Hurghada - Bristol.
    • Quickest Flight Time: Cardiff - Bristol.
  • Take-off & Landings
    • Day T/O: 596
    • Night T/O: 91
    • Day Landing: 550
    • Night Landing: 131

There you have it…

Bit of a short update this one, but I wanted to let you know I’m still at the pointy end and loving the career to date. It brings its challenges, but I wouldn’t change it one bit. If you want me to talk about any other topics and have any questions, then please do get in touch via the socials or using the contact form on this blog. I’ll do my best to answer them. Based on my blog updates recently, you never know I might be a Captain the next time I publish a post on here.

Until I next write something, all the best!

George. 

Join My Mailing List

Be among the first to see my latest content.


Comments

What did you think of this post? Join the discussion below.