Disillusioned workers flee battered airline industry
By Greg Burns
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — Veteran airline pilot Craig Eldridge could have kept flying, but in his heart he believed it was getting him nowhere.
Amid all the cutbacks and turmoil at United Airlines, which filed for bankruptcy protection in 2002, Eldridge had enough seniority to keep his job as a Boeing 777 captain. Instead, he taxied his last wide-body to the gate two years ago, then launched a new career as a salesman for a commercial printing company in suburban Batavia.
"It's not as cool to tell people I sell printing, but I think I'm happier," the 45-year-old Eldridge said. "For me, the romance of it was gone. If I was going to secure a future for my family, this was my chance."
For a time, the workers of United Airlines had it made, their compensation protected by some of the strongest unions around, and even their dullest duties brightened by the romance of air travel.
Today, United is to seek court approval to turn its pensions over to the government, and tomorrow it has a trial scheduled to void certain labor contracts. United's head count has fallen almost 40,000 from its peak, and the nation's airline industry overall has eliminated more than 120,000 jobs since just before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Four years in crisis has left thousands of lifelong airline employees bruised and disillusioned, their skills unappreciated, and their safety nets fraying. Money-losing carriers have targeted their jobs, benefits and perks, while their unions try to salvage what they can.
Many of the castoffs struggle to find a new place in the world.
"There's obviously a sense of bitterness and a real sense of betrayal," said Catherine Williams, vice president of financial literacy at credit counselor Money Management International, who has helped advise laid-off United workers. "It wasn't like you could go on to another airline."
Some got teaching certificates or real-estate licenses, while some went into trucking or other transportation trades, she said. Some moved from cities to rural areas, seeking a lower cost of living. Some went into career limbo.
When United shut down its vast airplane maintenance center in Indianapolis two years ago, machinist Paul Schnulle fell back on a lawn service he had run as a side job.
"You wouldn't believe how many people called me to ask if I had any work (for them)," he said.
In the aftermath of the shutdown, many of his friends left town or scratched together a living in heating, plumbing and other trades, he said. "I've heard a half-dozen stories of suicides. It breaks your heart."
The lawn business kept him going long enough for Schnulle to re-enter aviation, helping to launch a machine shop that mostly employs ex-United workers at the Indy site. With about 40 employees, Indianapolis Diversified Machining picks up the slack in an industry eagerly outsourcing maintenance work to low-cost providers.
While customer-service and mechanical skills transfer readily to jobs outside United, some airline work experience counts for less than anticipated in the open market, said aviation consultant Michael Boyd.
"It's not easy work, but loading an airplane is not a $50,000 a year job. And cleaning an airplane is not that different from cleaning a building at night," Boyd said. "The industry protected in a highly paid cocoon some jobs that were not worth that much in the real world."
Furloughed pilots from mainline carriers have had trouble replacing incomes that typically ran well into six figures, Boyd said. At his small Colorado-based aviation consultancy, he said, "We get resumes all the time from pilots saying they want to work with us: 'All I'm looking for is 100K a year.' A lot of people out there have nowhere to go."
Transitions can be particularly tough for folks who lived and breathed the business, Eldridge explained.
"A pilot is what I did, it wasn't who I was. But for the majority, it's in their blood," he said. "It's all they want to do."
Of course, plenty of refugees from mainline carriers say they feel grateful to be out of such a volatile industry.
For ex-United senior executive Andy Studdert, who gave the order to ground the fleet on Sept. 11, the offer to become chief executive of a troubled equipment-rental company looked sweet in comparison with his previous gig.
As he put it, "It's nice to be in a tough business rather than an impossible one."
Studdert's NES Rentals is in the midst of what he describes as a "fantastic" turnaround.
"It might not be as glamorous as a 777 banking into the sunset, but you know what? It's a good business," he said.
Still, his time in United's executive suite gave him a taste of aviation's seductive power.
"If anybody tells you they don't have a small part of them that misses it, they're lying to you," Studdert said.
