Ten years in: the things I would tell year one me, from someone who is not going to say 'follow your dreams'
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#1 Ten years at a US major this month and I have been reading the new crew threads with the specific feeling of watching someone about to walk into a door I walked into. So, a list. Not inspirational. Practical.
1. Bid the junior base. Build the number. Move later. You will not do this, nobody does, but I am saying it.
2. The first two years of pay are the worst they will ever be. Do not judge the career on them.
3. Learn the senior crew's names and use them. They decide whether your first year is hard or bearable and it costs nothing.
4. Save ten percent of every per diem from the first trip. In ten years that is a deposit. I did not and I am still angry about it.
5. Do not drink on layovers in year one. Not for moral reasons. Because the crew who did are not here and the crew who did not are.
6. The passenger is not angry at you. They are angry at the airline, the delay, their life. You are the uniform. Take nothing home.
7. Get a hobby that lives in a bag. Something you can do in any hotel room. Mine is drawing, badly. It has saved me on a hundred layovers.
8. Call your mother from the layover, not from the crew bus. She wants to hear the city.
9. The friendships from your course will mostly fade. Two will stay. Find out which two early and put the effort there.
10. When the going phase comes, and it comes every few years, do not resign in the middle of it. Bid different flying, take leave, wait. It passes. The people who resigned in a going phase all regret it. The ones who waited are pursers.
Add yours if you have more than five years. If you have less than one, read and argue in five years.
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#2 Fourteen years and I agree with all ten and would add 11: buy the good pillow and the good shoes in year one, not year five. The body remembers the cheap ones.
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#3 Nine years, and number 9 is the one that stings because it is right. My course was 18 people. I speak to two. They are two of the closest friends I have.
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#4 Eight years, and number 10 is the one I would put in bold. My going phase was year five. I bid the Asia flying instead of resigning and it turned into the best two years. Wait it out.
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#5 Ex crew, six years, and I resigned in a going phase. Sam is right. I regret it. Not enough to go back. Enough to say so here.
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#7 Training, less than one, and I am doing as instructed: reading, saving the thread, and setting a reminder for 2031 to come back and argue.
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#8 Six years, kids, domestic, and I would add for the parents: number 8 applies to the kids too. Call from the layover, show them the window. They remember the cities you show them, not the ones you mention.