Pro-Pilot Playbook Podcast #24 // Lifestyle of a Corporate Pilot

[Music] hi welcome to the pro pilot playbook podcast i'm mike and i'm sean hey and welcome back to another great episode we got some new equipment here i sean was nice enough to hook me up with the fancy microphone that he uses so hopefully we both have great audio i lost the uh earbuds man so we're uh we're moving up we look like joe rogan now man yeah yeah yeah i don't know about that where's the big headphones yeah he's got the cans on the cans oh man well we got a great episode today one

that uh shawn and i we might have to cut this one short because there's a lot to talk about on this one but we got a great question on uh corporate pilot lifestyle so go ahead and read the question sean i don't have it pulled up in front of me yeah yeah so this one came in from uh it's another youtube comment and uh we're like i said i think in the last podcast you know we're we were kind of late to realize people were asking questions in the youtube comments so we're sorting through them

here getting to them this one came in in september from qc is his uh handle on youtube okay and it was a comment to uh the state of the pilot industry video we put out back in back around then sometime but uh qc ask or comments i should say please continue to make videos on corporate aviation i would love if uh you guys could make more videos about what the corporate aviation lifestyle is like in general and uh could you guys go into depth about having control over your schedule and time because i am training

right now for my ppl or private pilot's license and when i get there i want to have control over my schedule love the content well ah great i love this question uh uh uh and uh thank you for for having that question because this is a very very complicated answer so right uh i guess i'll start by talking about sean was an airline pilot so he can touch on that schedule but here's the thing um with airline pilots most of their schedules are the same most airline jobs i don't want to say the same but

they you bid your trips and and yada yada yada and for the most part most 121 carriers have a varying schedule to the same but it's it's based on seniority and you pick your trips and that kind of thing so in general airline pilot schedules are the same uh just they get better based with seniority corporate is not like that at all it is completely dependent on your job and every job is completely different and i've had several of them and sean's had several of them so we can touch on what to expect if you

are a corporate pilot and and uh uh uh how that how the lifestyle is and obviously i've been living it for 20 years so um i don't think it's too bad but it depends on the the the job that you have so okay uh i think i mean the word corporate pilot also gets thrown around a lot and gets uh branded as the name of of several different things i mean to say you're a corporate pilot that could mean and we've mentioned this in other podcasts before too uh because you're flying a corporate jet you

know there's there's several different facets of that and so many variables just yeah so i guess yeah we could run through a few of the scenarios here of what a corporate pilot is yeah yeah okay um so there's uh you know your large charter companies like uh net jets uh delta private jets wheels up um flex jet uh uh these are these are huge operators that have tons of private jets and they're for sale for rent and that's referred to as charter in the business and those are good jobs they're exciting uh especially when you

first start because you're going to all these cool places but those are on demand rental of private jets and they have more like an airline schedule not quite but more like where you basically have days on and you have days off and you can pick your days on and you know you pick your line so to speak and uh very common in that business is a seven on seven off so you're gone for a week then you're off for a week then you're gone for a week and then you're off for a week um and

shawn and i did that kind of flying at a previous employer it's nice because if somebody asks you what you're doing you know three months from now you'll know if it's your off week or you're on week and then a lot of those places if you take vacation you get one week off which is really three weeks so it's it's it's pretty cool now when you're on you have no idea where you're going unlike an airline pilot you just know i'm starting on wednesday and then you're probably getting on an airline flight and meeting a

plane somewhere you have no idea where it is you get there and then you bounce all around the country and sometimes the world for seven days and then wherever you end up on your off day they airline you back to where you live right as you can you can live anywhere usually because that has airline service because they just airline yen and if variety is what you're looking for that is some variety wouldn't you say sean yeah oh yeah and there's there's several variations depending on the company uh what airplane you're on at the company

or what the staffing is on that plane the seven and seven is just an example it could be right uh six on four off could be ten and six could be ten and seven uh i mean i've heard several different variations of of that type of schedule with those kind of operators yeah and then you got uh uh just a regular corporate job which would be like flying for a big company like uh for instance a huge pharmaceutical company i know they're in the news or or walmart or target or any of these huge retailers

maybe google these tech companies these are big big flight departments we call those part 91 flight departments and they have a bunch of private jets and they have a bunch of pilots those uh will have kind of a hybrid schedule i guess uh every operation is different but you can have somewhat of a schedule there where there's trips and then schedulers assign those trips and then you have certain weeks off uh you know that are guaranteed off and then they drop you on different trips around there so um and then there is some on call

and depending on what type of operation there's there's on call associated with that um the previous example we gave of that on-demand charter you are on call 24 7 on your on week but on your off week they can't call you you know kind of thing uh corporate operations are not like that they'll have different policies for when you're on call and everything and then you get to what sean and i do which is smaller companies that maybe have one airplane and in in sean's case one pilot but very commonly it's a two pilot airplane

tv2 and then and then that varies that's what i'm on i'm on a two-man crew right now which is uh a lot of people would say oh that's not what you want uh because whenever the airplane moves i'm on it because there's two pilots required we only have two there is a caveat to that though you can hire what's called a contract pilot so if you need a time off and the airplane's moving then you can hire a pilot and pay them a day rate and oftentimes there's pilots in your area that fly the same

type of airplane so you just borrow somebody from another company and we do that to help them out and they do that to help us out and then you can have somewhat of a set schedule but so my this is not a problem two pilots one airplane um as long as you don't fly that much so we don't fly very often so um i don't work much so yeah okay i gotta fly whenever the airplane goes uh but it only goes somewhere every 10 days or something so is it is that really that bad you

got to work every two out of 10 days you can't pick you know when that is uh but there is a you know we we have an idea of the person that i fly for is habits in the company and where they travel and we know they go certain places certain times of the year and there's certain meetings on certain days so i actually have a very good idea of what i'm doing uh week to week but the uh uh you know long-term planning can be difficult but we have maintenance events so you have one

airplane two pilots uh there's inspections on the plane we know where those are when those are to some degree and when the plane's not available when it's down for maintenance you're 100 off so you could go to the moon it doesn't matter because the plane can't fly so there's scheduled maintenance events you can plan vacations around that we plan our vacations around when the company takes their vacations that works well too um you know uh especially when you're going to grand cayman for uh for your yes sometimes uh you can uh have your family come

on uh on a trip on the airlines and meet you where you're at um and kind of everybody wins there you don't have to take off uh and the company gets you to fly the plane then you get there for free so to speak because you would normally go on the airlines um so you only have to pay for families tickets and sometimes the lodging's paid for because you're supposed to be there anyway so um there's lots of perks uh in that respect but every you know to say you're going to find a job exactly

like mine you're probably not there's going to be different variations but um and then it matters how often does the company fly on the weekend so if you're doing corporate business trips mainly you're probably hardly ever working on the weekends and that's a very important part of a corporate pilot schedule so you know if you might you know you may not what you know what you're doing during the week you might have to work a couple days a week and you don't know whether it's monday or friday or thursday but who really cares if you're

always off on the weekends you know um so uh that's that's a short answer but uh how would you add to that sean right i mean no it's it's great it's great but i that the there there's so many variables it like you were saying you're on the plane with two pilots uh some aircraft i mean yours doesn't fly that much but it right similar situation a corporate flight department that had one jet uh you know you might have three pilots working there and the company probably just has like a calendar a shared calendar for

the jet and uh between the three pilots you guys work out your own schedule and you know everybody plays nice with each other if something comes up with somebody's kids you know you got it covered um there there's just so many i would say the worst situation ever would be uh you know a guy that flies single pilot in a king air or something and is always on call no matter what and he has an erratic boss that never knows what he's doing and or multiple owners yeah or multiple owners using that thing that's another

oh yeah that's a nightmare but um it is so all over the place to you know say what a schedule would be like as far as lifestyle i mean the other part of your question is lifestyle right right you know the corporate aviation lifestyle i think mike and i both love it that's why we're here right uh doing this i would say you know one of the main things right out of the gate is typically in a corporate environment you fly less than an airline guy yeah i mean you know what an airline pilot may

do in two months what we do an entire year you know as far as hours yeah it's quite possible yeah yeah absolutely yeah so you're you know we're typically flying somewhere like a typical trip would be you know you fly to l.a and you sit one leg and then you sit there for three days and you do whatever you want and then you fly back that's typical airline pilots don't do that they fly to la then they fly to seattle and uh salt lake and then spin the nightingale lake and then three or four legs

and then miami and then they're in miami then they go to atlanta and then they're home you know i mean so um that's a total different ball game there now if you're into other things you got uh side business that you do maybe you make aviation podcasts i don't know but um it's nice because you could just you're out in la and you're working you're you're not at home you're away from your family and everything but you can do whatever you want so you could work on this stuff or you know things with the company

get get things uh other work that you have to do during that time where as an airline pilot they're kind of unplugged for that time period because they're you know they're flying all the time so that's another important thing wouldn't you say sean right oh yeah it's uh the lifestyle is completely different yeah i mean in the airlines you get to most of the routes are built you get to the hotel and you got enough time to you know get something to eat and whatever they got especially the regionals they got everything packed in there

so tight you don't have time to mess around you don't get a rental car or anything like that you get a shuttle from the airport over to the hotel and then uh early in the morning you're off doing the next thing no time for golf at all yeah no flying you know three to six legs in one day i don't know maybe not six but uh i mean in our world mike and i will show up at the airport this is a typical day um we'll show up we'll get the jet ready we do everything

ourselves that's the airlines you have somebody doing everything for you um but you know we're the ones making sure the airplane's clean and uh making sure we got the right fuel or doing weather stuff flight planning maintenance stuff whatever we're taking care of all that where the airline somebody else is doing all that and then we'll fly one leg to usually uh if it's a vacation destination somewhere nice and uh we've already hooked up our own hotel rooms that we want at our favorite spot and we have a rental car for us and we're there

for uh you know could be a day or two or we could just be turning around and coming right home later that night and we're done for the day for the next 10 days even it's yeah i mean it's completely another thing is uh a lot of these companies will allow the airplane to be uncovered mine does uh which is a nice perk um you know if they're going somewhere for an extended period say two weeks or a week even and uh they don't they don't feel they're in a position where they would immediately need

the airplane or have what we call a hot crew instead of you guys staying there for a week you can just land the corporate jet take a taxi over to the airline terminal airline back to your house and then the day before they want to leave you airline back and get the plane so that now you're truly off then for that week that you're at home you're separated from the airplane right you know you're truly off but one thing that i was just thinking that i wanted to address that comes up a lot and you'll

hear this a lot from um from airline pilots that have never flown corporate um and they bring it up as a big um negative they'll always go yeah you don't want to be a corporate air pilot you're tied to your phone those guys are they're constantly on call i mean you know you never know when someone's going to call yeah over generalization right right and uh i think more of that comes from the charter stuff that we talked about that seven on its ethanol when you're working for those operators and you're on that week on

they will call you because they're they've got so many flights and something breaks and then and you gotta go and this and that uh you know they're picking some nfl player up in miami and then there's a mechanical issue with that plane and you're sitting in georgia so they scramble you to go get him and all of that which is exciting too it's not boring but um when you're working for these companies like sean and i do um it is possible yes they could call you in the middle of the night and want you to

go somewhere but when you think of a normal person like actually you just think of a time in your life where you would have needed a private jet within a moment's notice in the middle of the night i mean what was really going on that you would really need that i mean you know you could think of some scenarios in general where that might happen but in your life thinking back would that does that really occur so my point is is it actually doesn't it's not very common it doesn't happen often where you know the

boss calls in the middle of the night and goes i gotta leave what are you doing wake up get to the airport that that's not a it's a misconception i think now we do have changes in the schedule and they'll say they'll call you today and they'll say hey i gotta go to new york tomorrow sorry about that you know and they'll call that that kind of stuff happens but where you're you know at kroger shopping and then you got to leave your groceries and run to the airport take i mean that that type of

thing i have heard stories of guys that fly freight and things like that happening but at least in my experience it's it's very uncommon how about you right no no it's never maybe once have i had some but i feel like i still had like a heads up that something might be happening right so i was already kind of throwing stuff in a bag anyway um not that i usually don't have a bag packed but uh yeah the you know good point you were talking about the seven on seven up you know sometimes you know

what will happen is the on-call stuff you'll you'll go to work for the start of your seven on or your six on or your eight on ten on whatever it is and because they have to have that uh plane covered you know they're airlining the other crew home and airlining the new crew out to have it covered so the jet may be you live in ohio but the jets sitting in texas so they airline the new crew to texas and you just sit in a hotel room for four days or around the town until they

put a trip on that jet but they can't leave that jet uncovered so that kind of stuff happens too where uh you're working but you're not really working right yeah yeah right yeah that was really common when we were in the charter world yeah right hopefully it's a good place you know yeah yeah and you take the good with the bad i remember uh walking on the beach in miami one time in like january and then uh boom you get a text and it's like we're going to minneapolis soccer right but the reverse happens sometimes

you're in uh new york and it's snowing and then they send you to palm beach and you're like oh this is a win yeah but uh yeah you know it was so hard to pack in the winter i remember summer's okay because it's nice everyone in the winter though you would need like all this winter gear plus you would need your flip-flops and your paintings soon all right because you had no idea where it was a big bag in the winter winter time yeah big bag yeah mixed bag but uh yeah yeah so the uh

is going back to the schedule thing having control over your schedule i just want to mention qc uh nobody ever accused a pilot of working too much you know so you're gonna have a pretty decent schedule no matter where you're at even if you go to the airlines you know like mike mentioned you bid that happens every month every month you bid on your schedule or they call it the line uh that you want to hold and so that that's a mixed bag of all kinds of stuff and whatever you can get is gonna be

based on your seniority so when you first start off there you know you're gonna be the guy that ends up flying you know the crappy schedule probably over weekends and it's four or five days a week uh but as you get seniority you know you can start bidding those trips everybody once it's you know one flight a week to i don't know palm beach whatever uh lulu yeah yeah um so it's there's always now you may be asking the question because in one of these podcasts uh i may have said it uh verbatim i have

control over my schedule and i i'm in a little different boat i guess i can explain that if that's why you're saying it so i i manage aircraft i don't really work for one particular person i have a company that takes care of these airplanes and manages them i go after these smaller corporate companies that have one airplane and and uh constantly going through pilots i'll come in and fly on a contract basis for them and then talk my way into managing the airplane for them which means making sure all the maintenance is done and

making sure somebody's not ripping them off on a hanger fee or something like that and then i charge a monthly fee for that and then i fly the airplane or i find a pilot for them to fly the airplane on a daily basis then they don't have a high-end employee like a pilot to worry about and uh it's cheaper for them also so in that realm of what i do i have control over my schedule because i'm not anybody's employee and most of the work i do is contract work at this point so i'll get

calls from i got 15 different aircraft spread across the country that i that i take care of or fly for on a part-time or contract basis a daily rate basis and if they call me and i got something going on or i just whatever i don't work that day can you say i'm not even i'm not available it's a lot of extra money too yeah yeah it's good good money um typically i try to find them you know a pilot if i'm unavailable for some reason but uh yeah so that's that's how if that's what

your question is in reference to that's how i control my schedule yeah just to touch on that so the average contract pilot i i would say the range for a contract pilot is uh 600 to 2 000 a day uh depending on what type of aircraft you're on um you can charge more and what the type of trip is and all that stuff so yeah yeah there's a lot of opportunities uh to work on your off days uh to fly uh for somebody for the reasons that i mentioned like their pilot is sick or off

or has the rona or whatever yeah and you uh uh they they want they need a guy to cover a trip uh so you can make a lot of extra money that way yeah yeah you can yeah there's guys a lot of corporate guys do that yeah great so yeah it's a uh it's a it's i guess it's not for everybody if you're a big planner you may not like corporate flying you know if you need things really structured uh but if you're flexible and you like adventure and you get bored easy it's probably a

better uh line of work because it is not monotonous i'll tell you that right well i mean even if you are a planner and if you're flying for one of those big outfits um you know that you mentioned the first type or whatever that are basically charter companies i mean they have scheduled so many different schedules and so many yeah it's only when you get into the smaller corporate operators that your life could become crazy you know or unplannable i should say right right those jobs do exist yeah yeah i have heard some crazy stories

about the there's a couple operators out of detroit that uh fly um really old airplanes jets uh in car parts for the assembly lines uh in gm and then they'll you know fl leave it a month's notice and go to uh mexico but there's a guy that used to work with that flew one of those and he said they had a 15 minute call out oh my but here's the thing he said they had uh no dress code though so you could just show up in your pajamas or whatever you were wearing to go flying

but apparently if these uh like if a gm assembly line goes down or something for a right oh yeah they lose like a million dollars a minute oh wow yeah that's something crazy but yeah so you can find those but uh i i would say in general most corporate jobs are about like what we do you know right yeah yep and you might have to work at one of the crap ones until you uh you know figure out how everything works and me have enough connections and meet enough people to figure out where the good

ones are yeah yep that's kind of how things are but when you first start everything's so much fun i mean i'll be honest it is so much you're like holy they're paying me to fly this oh my god i do this for free and you don't yeah you don't even care yeah you're first exactly yeah you're just happy to be uh flip the script and be getting money to fly instead of paying money to fly right yep you're right but uh i i don't know uh qc uh thank you for the question mike you got

anything else that's what i was no that's i think we about beat that one to death yeah i mean we could sit here and rattle on that's what i was just realizing we're kind of rambling on i mean we could talk about we do have the most of our experience in this realm i mean we could talk about it and tell stories uh for another hour but uh i i think that sums everything up i mean everything uh that's your initial question was asking but i uh you're working on your private pilot's license looks like

uh like an update qc let us know how it's going yeah yeah yeah that was over the summer you said i guess one more thing regarding the lifestyle question um is the destinations typically you go to in a private jet are better i guess it's not always it depends on the operator but um you know you do go to the hot spots like new york where business is being taken you know done but you know on the leisure flights you're going to go to some some really nice places i mean right you know airlines you

know caribbean and uh uh aspen and jackson hole and telluride and uh these really affluent places that to be to be quite honest most of our listeners and our pilots have only heard about or really seen in movies you know um ultra luxurious islands in the caribbean and uh um you know and you're gonna go at all the good times you know you know you're not gonna go to miami in august you're gonna go in january you know um so uh uh yeah they're so so that that lifestyle portion of it to me is is

really neat i mean uh some of the things you know in the rocky mountains and skiing and you know northern canada and uh or not northern canada but canada canadian rockies you know some of these things that i would have never have seen you know if i wasn't in this business and it actually helps a great deal when you plan your own personal vacations like yeah you know i i got a rule i don't take my family anywhere that i haven't already been first and it was wonderful yeah yeah if i if i go somewhere

i haven't been i'm like i don't know man i you know it's like watching a movie i've never seen i'm like i don't know am i going to like it or not right you know that is a good point yeah you do yeah yeah to uh see some places that yeah that most people never get to see for sure yep all right if you have a question for the podcast uh you can send us your questions at podcast at propilotplaybook.com and thanks for tuning in you can see this anywhere now we're on seven different platforms

we appreciate all the subscribers and the viewers the listeners thank you everybody yeah thanks a lot [Music] you