Being A Pilot is Fun, but also Difficult

Hello everyone. I’m Nick Bente. I’m a professional pilot. I travel around the world to cool and exotic places, eat new and interesting foods and meet a lot of different people. Isn’t it amazing! But, the life of a pilot can also be difficult. For example:

• We don’t make much money. We make about $40,000 a year.

• When I go to a new country, I never know the local time there. We travel to too many places in a short time and it is impossible to learn all the time zones. The funny thing is, when I talk to my friends and family back home, they all ask the same question, “What time is it there?”

• I can’t make plans, because I don’t have a set schedule. It is hard to have a normal social life when you don’t know where you will be two days later.

• Yes, we fly to exotic places, but we don’t get to see them. When we go to an exotic place, we usually stay at a hotel with a view of the airport. We need to sleep between flights, so we don’t go out to see these places.

• It’s not true that all pilots know each other. The truth is, most pilots from the same airline don’t even know each other. It’s because when pilots have some free time, they want to spend it with their family. At other times, they work and don’t have time to socialize with each other.

• You miss your family. This is the most difficult thing about being a pilot. More than once, I missed important days. I missed my daughter’s first day at school, my wife’s birthday, our wedding anniversary, etc. I wasn’t there when our old dog died, and I couldn’t soothe my sad daughter.