American Airlines 787 Pilot Quit His $300,000 Job—Says Nobody Even Replied To His Resignation

An American Airlines Boeing 787 pilot says he quit a job that he says paid $300,000 a year. He emailed his resignation to the Miami chief pilots, and never even got a reply. His trips just disappeared from his schedule. Four days later, his employee login stopped working. He says he’d had enough of commuting, overnight flights, and spending his days off recovering. He also says American threatened him over a contract dispute and showed little interest when he finally walked away. But he admits he chose the wrong flying for the life he wanted. He could have used his seniority to get a much better schedule on a smaller aircraft. He’s a former F-16 and Navy F/A-18 pilot who also flew T-38s and he now flies law enforcement helicopters. His was making over $300 an hour. He owned his home outright, had no debt, no wife or children, and other work. So he let it go. His says that his first American interview was on video. He decided not to wear pants. He was excited when the offer came. He lived in New Orleans and wanted to be based in Miami but wound up with a choice of “737 New York or 737 New York.” Eventually he got Miami, but commuting there still made him miserable. In 2020 he was supposed to move to the Boeing 757 and 767, but American retired those during the pandemic. He took a paid pandemic leave, then unpaid leave and a personal leave and actually didn’t do flying for the airline between 2020 and 2024. Finally it was put up or shut up, and he came back to fly the 787. He wound up out again on a medical, wanted to fly Boeing 777s from Dallas but was stuck on the 787. He wanted domestic flying and realizes he should’ve moved to Airbus narrowbodies instead. “That’s where I basically screwed up.” The career wasn’t for him! It pays well. Some people love doing it. But it’s not for everyone! He wanted to be home. He didn’t recover well from overnight flying. He also complains about management and while an American pilot union leader told junior pilots to apply to Delta instead over quality of life and scheduling issues in 2023, the lifestyle is more or less the lifestyle. And he got out, before he was even more locked in. Seniority often keeps unhappy employees from leaving. Moving to another airline means giving up schedule priority and starting over. This pilot says he was projected to reach seniority number 140 by retirement. That’s a great deal of future control over his working life to surrender. The complaint that he lost access to American Airlines systems after resigning is a bit weird though. That’s… what happens? And he’s telling this story to promote a book he’s written about a burned-out former fighter pilot who leaves the airlines for law enforcement aviation. Topics on this page