How many people here work in the airline industry?

[Filippo]

14 year old aspiring to become airline CEO. What's the best road?

[munipandita]

I'm in the air force academy to be military pilot... not airline industry, but aviation industry.. haha 

[CX257]

I'm in the air force academy to be military pilot... not airline industry, but aviation industry.. haha 

Well even after ur retirement from military u might still able to get a pilot jobs on civil aviation or instructor work i suppose. 

[NorgeFly]

I stumbled into aviation about 7 years ago after university. A couple of years as cabin crew and now I work in the operations and planning division of the same airline.

[Maarten Otto]

I have worked for BA (yes, that Willy bankruptcy airline) security in Amsterdam for some years. Today I work at the tower....  making sure trains land safely at the right platform at the Schiphol airport rail station 

[Dave4468]

Oh, as well as my plans to become a pilot hopefully one day for work experience I spent a week doing work experience in the Flight Physics department of Airbus in Filton. I had to prove an A318 could land at London City.

You will never believe what the result was...

And IIRC I was there a week or so after some 747s flew in for conversion and missed an A380 by not too long as well.

[munipandita]

Well even after ur retirement from military u might still able to get a pilot jobs on civil aviation or instructor work i suppose. 

Hehe.. yeah.. this is a good market here in Brazil, and when someone is retired from the military, the companies goes after you to fly for them... I'm willing to fly helicopters, the market is really good after my retirement too... but.. i have 35 years of service ahead hahaha

[alexgv1]

Hehe.. yeah.. this is a good market here in Brazil, and when someone is retired from the military, the companies goes after you to fly for them... I'm willing to fly helicopters, the market is really good after my retirement too... but.. i have 35 years of service ahead hahaha

Yeah most THY pilots are ex-military (which has problems when they expect the same performance from a civil aircraft  ) but I believe the number is decreasing now as a percentage. A lot of pilots I have spoken to in the UK get trained with the RAF and go commercial after a military career, suppose it's one of the main career paths to that goal.

[ekaneti]

I would STRONGLY recommend that people here NOT NOT NOT work for an airline . There is no future in it. The economic model basically doesnt work. In the USA, airline employees are earning on average the same salary they did 10 years ago.

Aviation is ok. There are many other aviation related jobs that arent airlines

[Seattle]

I would STRONGLY recommend that people here NOT NOT NOT work for an airline . There is no future in it. The economic model basically doesnt work. In the USA, airline employees are earning on average the same salary they did 10 years ago.

Aviation is ok. There are many other aviation related jobs that arent airlines

You forgetting top administration 

Plus, if you love what you do, you do it.

[jetRush]

Fly them, no way!!  I control them instead....best video game in the world....

[pattN]

 i am an a/c engineer ,cat B1.1 type rating b737+a320fam,working for a BIG airline......

[ICEcoldair881]

i am an a/c engineer ,cat B1.1 type rating b737+a320fam,working for a BIG airline......

Air Berlin? Hapag-Lloyd/Express? Luftansa (as they operate both like Air berlin).......

[NorgeFly]

I would STRONGLY recommend that people here NOT NOT NOT work for an airline . There is no future in it. The economic model basically doesnt work. In the USA, airline employees are earning on average the same salary they did 10 years ago.

Aviation is ok. There are many other aviation related jobs that arent airlines

Well that depends largely on the airline you work for surely...

The USA and Europe are pretty different too. In the US it is not uncommon for crews (pilots + cabin staff) to commute hundreds of miles to their hub to work for very low wages (especially the regional airlines). Here in the UK (and Europe as far as I am aware) the situation is much better.

I work for a European regional airline and the wages are not particularly high by industry standards, but our junior pilots for example earn considerably more than the US equivalent (in fact cabin crew at my airline earn more than a new regional pilot does for some US airlines!).

[GDK]

Well that depends largely on the airline you work for surely...

The USA and Europe are pretty different too. In the US it is not uncommon for crews (pilots + cabin staff) to commute hundreds of miles to their hub to work for very low wages (especially the regional airlines). Here in the UK (and Europe as far as I am aware) the situation is much better.

I work for a European regional airline and the wages are not particularly high by industry standards, but our junior pilots for example earn considerably more than the US equivalent (in fact cabin crew at my airline earn more than a new regional pilot does for some US airlines!).

EU is much better than Asian... A technician with EASA B1-1 licence earns only 1000USD.

[Seattle]

Just wondering here..... but what types of degrees would need to be an airline CEO or someone high up in management?

[Sigma]

Just wondering here..... but what types of degrees would need to be an airline CEO or someone high up in management?

Well, a "CEO" is quite a different animal than someone "high up in management"

"High up in Management" could mean any sort of business-centric degrees.  Accounting, Finance, Operations, Customer Relations, Legal, even Human Resources -- each would have their own seperate departments within an airline, each with their own hierarchy of management.  You could be exceedingly "high up in management" but actually be in the HR department.  You don't have to choose any particular degree to be "high up" in any particular company, because it all depends on what you want to do in that company that determines what degree you need.

If you're looking at the tip-top of an organization, it's Chief Officer positions, (and this applies to any, not just airlines) you're going to have a CEO, they can come from any department, but Marketing is probably the most prevalent thesedays.  A CFO, they're going to have a Finance degree.  A COO (Chief Operations Officer), they could have any sort of degree, but likely something Logistics, Operations Management, or similar; in the aviation industry Aeronautical Engineering degrees are common across all departments.  A CMO (Chief Marketing Officer), they're likely going to have a Marketing degree.   A CIO (Chief Information Officer) is likely going to have a Computer Science, BCIS, or other related degree.

In the past years, a growing number of schools in the US have begun to offer programs specifically targetted towards the aviation industry.  While in decades past many in the industry had Aeronautical Engineering degrees (perhaps one reason why so many airlines don't do well as businesses), there are now programs targetted specifically towards the business of aviation -- there are Aviation Management, Aviation Logistics, and some just called "Aviation". 

But those may not be at all relevant to what you want to do with an airline.  If you want to do Finance work, a Finance degree is going to be infinitely more useful than any Aviation-related one.  If you want to do engineering-type work, you're going to need an Aeronautical Engineering degree.  If you want to do Marketing stuff, you'll need a Marketing degree.  Human Resources, an Organization Behavior degree.  Route Planning could be Marketing, Logistics, even Operations Research.

[GDK]

You don't have to be a degree holder to become CEO.

[Sigma]

You don't have to be a degree holder to become CEO.

No, you don't have to, but the chances thesedays are about as close to zero as one can get.  At least not without starting your own company anyway -- there isn't a single Fortune 500 CEO that doesn't have a college degree sans a couple that started the company themselves.  I'm assuming Seattle's talking about major national/international airlines, not 3-plane charter operations.

Most major companies thesedays won't even promote beyond Senior Manager/Director-level position without a college degree, let alone higher than that.

[GDK]

A degree is important for employees but not employers. The important thing is you must have enough fund to start a business. And in order to get this fund, you will need to live some years as an employee and that is where your degree needed.

But if you are just like Tony Fernandes who bought an airline with only RM1(0.26USD) and started his CEO life, then you might not need the degree. Once you managed to get your company survives, people will say you are genius and universities will start giving you honorary degrees.