Frowning on lack of commercial experience

[PBrain]

I'm 27, been flying for 10 years and been an airline wannabe for maybe 5 years. I've spent my career outside aviation (except 20 hours instructing) and done the vast majority of my flying (450hrs) privately.

My question is - do airlines look on a lack of commercial experience as a bad thing? Or would they overlook this if there is a good reason?

I'm now in a situation where I have two degrees - BSc and BE and a well paid job in IT (which I hate!). I have every minimum for Qantas except for about 240hrs of command time. I have calculated that over 12 months it is cheaper for me to pay for the flying than have the lower salary of a GA pilot. (Don't the salaries suck!)

And before people argue why would I change to a career with horrible hours, lower pay, or whatever - too late, I've decided. Try staring at a computer screen 10 hours a day! And yes, I understand that minimum are MINIMUMS and all that...

Has anyone gone down a path similar to this? Anyone in Oz?

PBrain.

[redsnail]

In a nutshell, yes.
As you know flying commercially isn't just about A to B.
There are no guarantees in life, especially flying. The QF minimums are just that, minimums.
It is usually experience commensurate with age and since you are rapidly approaching 30 you will need more than the minimum 500 hours in command.
I know quite a few people in QF now, the lowest hours was 800 hours (bush and jump flying + time in the RAAF on PC9's, he's 27) and the highest was about 10,000 jet time. (He was nearly 40).
So, either you leave the job and go and get a flying job to get that log book looking better or you stay in your job and fly for fun.

[PBrain]

Thanks redsnail, that's pretty much what I'd thought all along.

I've been looking around for part time flying work and it looks like I may have some. I'll probably still have to do a bit of IT consulting and private flying to speed things up a bit. As you say, age isn't my friend here...