Flight Training - January/February 2021 - 45

ADVANCED PILOT CAREER PILOT

FINALLY!

SILVER LINING

A CARD
FOR PILOTS.

THE SUN WILL COME OUT TOMORROW
BY WAYNE PHILLIPS

Cash Back1 Select
AOPA Partners
CASH BACK1 APPLIED AS STATEMENT CREDIT.

LEIGH CAULFIELD

WE GET IT. THIS COVID THING HAS

inflicted moderate to severe turbulence
upon the professional aviation career
aspirations of so many future airline
and corporate pilots.
Rebecca is one of the many. After a
career as a flight attendant for a major
airline, she shifted her sights toward
a seat up front. In late 2019 and early
2020, she seemed to be on her way
to realizing that dream. Somewhat
short of the magic 1,500-hour mark,
she exercised her CFI certificate at a
Florida flight school and then parlayed
some of her hard-earned funds toward
the purchase of a spiffy little Cessna
150 Aerobat and chugged through the
southern skies garnering the remaining
few hundred hours to ATP land. The
offer for employment at a regional was
already in hand with a target class date
of April. And then....
Her story is typical of more than a
few aviators who found their career
path temporarily derailed. Although it
is only natural to become demoralized,

there is an old saying Mom believed in:
" Behind every cloud is a silver lining. "
So, take heart! This industry has always
rebounded. Although the airline passenger carriers have been set back, the
airborne cargo haulers are doing just
fine, and many air taxi and corporate
operators have experienced an uptick
in business.
Kit Darby (KitDarby.com) has
been an aviation career consultant
for decades and has provided myriad
preparatory services for thousands of
fledging pilots. He has these observations: " We expect that there will be an
initial overreaction to the conditions
caused by the virus pandemic with
a partial bounce-back, followed by a
slower recovery over several years. We
expect the revenue passenger miles
[RPMs] to return quickly to 70 to 80
percent of the previous levels in a year
or less, followed by a two- to three-year
recovery back to the previous levels
and beyond. This timeline could be
shortened by the introduction of an
AOPA.ORG/FT

Switch today to the
new AOPA credit card,
and stop paying too
much on your
aviation purchases.

Visit

AOPA.org/creditcard
to learn more

*Certain points and purchases restrictions apply, see full Rewards
Terms and Conditions for full details at AOPA.org/creditcard.
1 Rewards points can be redeemed for Cash Back or other items provided through AOPA Pilot Rewards. A Cash Back redemption is applied
as a statement credit. The statement credit will reduce your balance
but you are still required to make at least your minimum payment. A
minimum of 2,500 points is needed to redeem for Cash Back. Values
for non-cash back redemption items such as merchandise, gift cards,
and travel may vary.

http://www.AOPA.org/creditcard https://kitdarby.com/wp/ http://www.AOPA.org/creditcard http://www.AOPA.ORG/FT

Flight Training - January/February 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Flight Training - January/February 2021