[ChinookDriver]

Here it is - GREAT stuff here from ZapBrannigan on JC - a guy who's experienced it all:

Part 1:

I have had the misfortune of being furloughed many times in the last 12 years. The first thing you should do (after you sober up) is sign up for unemployment. You paid into it, might as well use it when you need it.

I wrote the following article for Career Pilot Magazine (AirInc publication) in 2003. I hope that it helps some of you as you plan for this difficult event.

October 26, 2003

The Last Day
The last day was without a doubt the hardest. My last leg was from Richmond to Pittsburgh on a crisp winters evening. A thousand thoughts raced through my mind as I pushed up the throttles for the very last time and 120,000 pounds of Boeing began to lumber down the runway. “V1… rotate”, the Captain called and with a little back pressure the nose lifted smoothly skyward. I could feel my throat tighten and my heart fall into my stomach as I realized that this takeoff might have been my last. I hand-flew her to altitude before calling for the Captain to engage the autopilot. The hour passed in near silence as I watched the evening sky darken out my window. The Captain knew this would be my last flight. I can’t tell you what was on my mind as we cruised over West Virginia that night. I reflected on every part of my career wondering where I had gone wrong… wondering what I would do next. What would come of my career? How would I support my family? Would I ever fly professionally again? What would happen to the hundreds of pilots who were similarly impacted by my airline’s “market-driven reduction in capacity”?

The Captain finally broke the silence. “How about I request 28 Left”, he offered. “Nice, long runway… you grease her on. Don’t worry about stopping in a hurry. Let me know when you’re done with her.”

After four days in a cockpit with somebody, you know them pretty well. You’ve talked about wives and children, careers, houses, and retirement. They may as well be family. Bill knew that this was hitting me pretty hard. He knew that a landing on runway 32 with a lot of reverse thrust, heavy braking and an early turn-off wasn’t the ending I was looking for.

We turned final for 28-Left and I disengaged the autopilot and autothrottles one last time. We passed over the threshhold and I slowly pulled the thrust to idle as the airplane settled into ground effect. I eased the nose smoothly towards the horizon and, for a moment, I could just barely hear the wheels brushing against the pavement from 80 feet behind me. The slightest vibration could be felt in the yoke as the full weight of the airplane settled onto her main landing gear and the wheels spun up. I held the nose off the ground, “cracking” the thrust reversers but not adding any additional reverse thrust beyond idle. This wasn’t a landing to be ruined by noisy reverse and bone-jarring braking. Finally, as she slowed to taxi-speed I offered her back to the Captain…and managed to squeak out a weak, “Thanks Bill”.

I brought my flight-kit to the chief pilots office to drop off manuals, ID, hat-badge, and wings. “Put your manuals in the conference room with the rest and give me your ID before you leave,” the receptionist droned. The long table in the conference room was literally covered in a mountain of flight-standards manuals, operations manuals, QRH’s, and Jeppeson binders. It was disgusting. A room of shattered dreams. I handed the receptionist my ID and she dismissed me without so much as a smile. Just another number - Another name to be crossed off the list.

I walked to my car that day. I just couldn’t bring myself to ride the employee-bus. The ice cracked loudly beneath my feet and the wheels of my suitcase as I made my way through the rows of cars towards the employee lot. The cold Pittsburgh wind felt as if it were blowing right through me. I tossed my badge-free hat on the seat of the car and stared back towards the terminal. A 737-300 flew overhead and began a long, shallow turn to the north. The airline was running just fine without me. It was as if I had never even been there to begin with. The last three years of my life felt wasted. I had made no difference at all.

I allowed myself that night to grieve, but the next morning the sun rose as it always does and it was time to move on. The fact is, this was my third furlough after only 10 years of professional flying. Since then I have faced the possibility of yet another.

As airline management continues to try and play catch-up in an industry that is in a constant state of change we as airline-pilots have no choice but to be prepared for the possibility of furloughs, downgrades, bankruptcies and other career-catastrophies. It is a part of the job that we have chosen. If being an airline pilot has a thousand rewards, then the lack of career stability is its one, great flaw. So how can we make it through our careers without constantly living in fear? The following are some suggestions based on some actions that I have taken, along with suggestions from other furloughed pilots.

Always Be Prepared
Stay Informed: It is extremely easy to set the parking brake, drop your flight-kit in the crew room, and hit the road. Whether you commute from Florida, or live a mile from the employee-lot, one the nice things about our jobs is that we don’t have to take them home with us. When we leave the airport, our job is done and there is no need to even think about the airline until we go back to work a few days later. But being prepared for the unforeseen means making a conscious effort to keep yourself informed. Knowledge is power and having done the research required to sift through the crew-room gossip is essential! Our industry is, in many ways,still maturing. We as pilot groups have to be able to react to change along with it. It is vital to understand how your airline is competing. What are its challenges? What is its target market? Who are its principal competitors?

Stay Engaged: An ALPA membership services committee member once told me that he reason why the union higher-ups wear silver wings, while the general membership wears gold was because the union belonged to the line-pilot – and the leadership works for the line pilot. LEC and MEC meetings may not be the most enjoyable way to spend a day off, (especially if you have to commute in to attend!) but they are the only channel you have to impact the course of labor relations at your airline. After all, it is YOUR career. Who better to fight for it than you? Will a senior Captain fight to protect and enhance the careers of the junior pilots? Will a line-holder fight to improve working conditions for reserves?

You have to become a bit of a lobbyist and learn to campaign your union leadership. Let them know how you want them to protect your career. Just as if you might launch a petition to have a stop-sign put in at your neighborhood, you might also have to petition your fellow pilots to fight for job-security enhancements during the next round of negotiations. The union can not and will not protect you if they do not know what you want. If you want to effect change, you have to stay engaged. Unless your local representative is one-number junior to you on the seniority list, he’s unlikely to know what you want him to do. You absolutely have to tell him!

Have A Plan “B”

A few years ago I read an NTSB report about a pilot who was making a night-time visual approach to Roanoke, Virginia. The approach concluded with a very hard landing. During the investigation the first officer claimed that due to the high-terrain surrounding the airport the Captain’s approach briefing included the following:

“Go-around is not an option.”

I hate to be a Monday morning quarterback because I make mistakes constantly. I am pretty certain that at Moffet there is an entire filing cabinet filled with NASA forms just from me! I have to admit though that that briefing troubled me. Go-around is always an option – sometimes, the ONLY option. As professional pilots we would never commence an approach without a “Plan B”, and yet many of us go through our lives without giving any thought to a “career go-around”.

What would happen tomorrow if you were furloughed or fired? What if you were violated and your certificate suspended? What if you lost your medical?

Coming up with a Plan B is one of the most challenging exercises that you and your family might ever attempt. After all, you’re a pilot… pilots fly. Long before you ever face the possibility that your flying career may not end at age-60 you should have a plan in place. It could be something simple like fostering the career of your wife or husband. You could earn a dispatchers certificate or learn auto-repair. You could get a real-estate license or go back to school to learn to create websites. I flew with quite a few people over the year that owned small businesses.

The idea, of course, is to have a missed-approach procedure. That does NOT mean that you can’t get vectored back for another try. It simply means that you have a plan in place so that you and your family are not in dire straits if the worst case scenario occurs.