The two most important sections of any airline finance department are revenue accounting, which keeps track of all incoming money, and disbursements, which pays all the bills. Closely associated with disbursements is the payroll section, responsible for preparing thousands of weekly and bi-weekly pay checks. We pause at the next section to chat briefly with the manager of the insurance department. Her staff is concerned with handling every type of insurance from the multimillion dollar coverage on the aircraft fleet and passengers to the group life or health insurance, which is available to all employees.
Moving along the aisle, we find a group of employees who are familiar with both accounting procedures and tax laws. They staff the tax section, which houses an increasingly important group of specialists, because federal income taxes alone can run into the millions of dollars. Other taxes are collected by cities, counties, and states where the company's planes touch down.
The budget section crammed into one corner of the floor is most influential because these employees forecast income and expenses for the years ahead. They also review every departmental budget to make certain it is not too large in proportion to company assets.
Every section has its typists, secretaries, and accounting clerks, often called bookkeeping clerks, who have taken accounting or bookkeeping courses in school. They perform a wide variety of duties, mostly of a routine nature. The other more specialized positions call for men and women who have had college courses in economics, statistics, mathematics, or business administration. Those employees who have done graduate work or attended a business school qualify for the more responsible posts, many of which lead to top management positions.
Other Home Office Departments
It has been a long day and now we conclude our tour by walking quickly through the remaining departments before everyone leaves at five o'clock.
Airlines own little or no property. They lease their office space and rent hangars as well as all of the lobbies, concourses, ticket counter areas, and offices at airport terminals. Planning and supervising construction of hangars, ticket counters, office and other space, negotiating leases, and working closely with airport managements are the responsibilities of the properties department.
In the personnel department we see men and women busy interviewing and hiring applicants for jobs, keeping all of the personnel records, setting wage and salary scales, negotiating contracts with labor unions, and handling employee benefits.
Finally, after we pass the legal department, we stop at the door to the mail room. Here a number of young men and women are busy sorting and stamping mail, wrapping packages, and packing mail sacks for delivery to the post office. This is an ideal place for those just out of high school to start. Many an airline executive began his or her career sorting and delivering mail.
With a farewell wave to the receptionist we step into an elevator and go quickly to the ground floor. We have had an interesting day observing the operations of an airline that offers a great variety of career opportunities in the transportation industry.
FINDING YOUR JOB
If you live in a city served by several airlines, watch the help-wanted newspaper advertisements. In addition, apply at the personnel offices of those companies that offer the best opportunities for immediate employment and advancement. Should you live where there is no airline service or where only one or two carriers offer limited schedules, you must try a different approach. Check with your state employment security office to see what airline job listings, if any, it might have. If nothing is available, be sure to ask the interviewer for any suggestions. Bear in mind that these specialists keep up to date on employment trends.
Write the personnel department of those airlines where you think you would like to work. You can obtain the names and addresses of all airlines by consulting the World Aviation Directory, published by the Ziff- Davis Publishing Company, or by obtaining a list of certificated airlines from the Air Transport Association of America.
If you know anyone who works for an airline or has a friend employed by one of the carriers, talk with him or her to obtain firsthand information. If possible, secure the name of someone in the personnel department whom you might contact directly by mail or in person.
A FINAL WORD
Even as late as 1996 various news items might have given you the impression that the airlines were in trouble. Airports were overcrowded, a number of near mid-air collisions had been reported, there were delays in dispatching flights, and there were extremely confusing fare structures. Worse of all there had been two bad accidents, which raised serious safety problems.
"What kind of industry is this for a lifetime career?" You might well ask.
We offer four reasons for considering aviation in your future plans:
- Both the government and the airlines recognized the problems and were doing their best to correct them. Such chaos has occurred before and has been rectified, as it will be again.
- All types of transportation will undoubtedly experience accidents. From 1980-1995 the same number of people died each year in air crashes as were struck by lightning. Your chances of dying in a car or taxi are thirty-seven times greater each mile than on an airplane.
- The nation's economy depends on continued airline operations. A visit to any busy airport will confirm this if you watch the planes loading and unloading not only streams of passengers, but also tons of express, mail, and freight.
- After spending over twenty-five years in the industry, the author has every confidence that aviation offers even greater opportunities than it did during the so-called expansion years.
