Flights grounded, Thai Airways pilot becomes Grab driver

By Caitlin Ashworth

 

PHOTO: Facebook: Mahesak Wongpa

 

Some pilots are spending more time on the ground these days due to the pandemic-induced travel restrictions. One Thai Airways pilot is using his time away from the air to get to know the traffic on the ground as a Grab driver.

 

“The sky is closed,” pilot Mahesak Wongpa wrote on Facebook in a post sharing his story about becoming a Grab driver. Wahesak says he needed to do something useful in his spare time. While driving a car for Grab makes less money than flying a plane, Mahesak says being a Grab driver has a “very high moral value.”

 

And he’s not the only one. Read HERE andHERE.

 

 

On his first day, he drove for 3 hours and picked up 5 customers, earning around 500 baht that day. He messed up a bit at first, going the wrong way and then needing to turn the car around (we’re glad to report he didn’t do the same thing when flying with Thai Airways!).

 

At first he was worried. Mahesak says he thought “What will people think of a pilot now working as a grab driver?

Will people insult my driving? ” But now he says the experience has been rewarding and he’s been able to step out of his comfort zone.

 

“Don’t think too long. Step out of your comfort zone and do it.”

 

SOURCE: Facebook

 

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Source: https://thethaiger.com/news/national/flights-grounded-thai-airways-pilot-becomes-grab-driver

 

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Pilot or a messenger, in difficult times an honest job it is exactly what it is and there's no shame in earning honest money, beats paddling drugs or carrying on with shady and illegal activities and day...

Let's hope that the real Grab drivers don't fly the planes now. 

Grab in Germish means Grave. 

Edited November 14, 20205 yr by teacherclaire

My Lazada purchases frequently are delivered by a guy who claims that he used to be a pilot for Thai Air Asia before being laid off due to the Covid-19 crisis. His English is rather cultured so I tend to believe him.

 

As for the Grab driver in this article, is he subjecting his passengers to an elaborate safety demonstration and handing out tiny packets of peanuts?

Can't be easy to get enough flying hours these days, and the queue to the simulator must be long. Video games? 

Friend of my wife is a pilot for Thai also; he barely flies these days and gets about the same monthly salary an office worker gets.

 

Its enough to stay alive but of course doesn't cover his mortgage, car payments, or school fees of his kids. Must be hard to have to do a step back: going from almost unlimited income and being able to get 90% discount on plane tickets to making every baht count and having little to do every day.

Will all these  people  looking for a job contact me, I give free  house , electric, water, motorbike 1  person although 2  could  live there if they want but will have to find another job nearby, 15k a  month, take care of  our  land  and garden, no slackers  required expect theyll be queuing up down the road tomorrow.................NOT

Next up grab driving pilot battered to death by a mob of taxi drivers ????

It's not always an easy task to climb down the ladder, but no shame in that.

 

Some people look down upon people that has less attractive jobs, but in reality those same snobbish people wouldn't know what to do if they had noone to clean their sewers, take away their trash, cook their food, deliver their goods, wash their clothes etc etc. 

 

Noone should be ashamed of their jobs. 

Does he start with an in cab announcement.

 

' Welcome aboard your Grab ride from Nana to OnNut.  We will be cruising at 0 feet for the ride with a speed of 0 to 60kpm depending on traffic. The weather at your destination is 30 degrees Celsius  and our ETA is 12.30 pm.

For your inflight entertainment you may listen to popular music on the radio or look out the window. Do not unfasten your seat belt until we reach  out destination. Thankyou for riding with Grab '

 

 

This is a far from uncommon situation.

 

I work for Delta, and know quite a few pilots who have either been furloughed or laid off at various airlines.

 

Being a pilot means you don't have a lot of transferrable skills, other than flying a metal tube through the sky!

 

A couple of the Regional Airlines, Trans States and Compass which operated flights for United Express have folded completely leaving a lot of pilots sloshing around the job market.

 

I know quite a few personally. Some have managed to transition to the freight world, UPS & FedEx, but you would be surprised how many are now Lyft & Uber drivers, just hanging out until things hopefully improve in the airline world.

Edited November 14, 20205 yr by GinBoy2

Thai Airways workers are looking for earn money, but the Thai Airways management are relaxing in their palaces and profiting from the money stolen from travellers whose flights have been cancelled and not refunded.

3 hours ago, Misterwhisper said:

My Lazada purchases frequently are delivered by a guy who claims that he used to be a pilot for Thai Air Asia before being laid off due to the Covid-19 crisis. His English is rather cultured so I tend to believe him.

 

As for the Grab driver in this article, is he subjecting his passengers to an elaborate safety demonstration and handing out tiny packets of peanuts?

Did I tell you that I was an astronaut working for NASA?

 

I've met so many people here who were rich back home ( listening to them) , but couldn't buy a beer. I'm talking about foreigners now. 

 

 

Needs to grab one of those delivery drones then he could keep doing the pilot thing a'and take his moral value even higher .. merit points all round then ..

 

 

2 hours ago, teacherclaire said:

Did I tell you that I was an astronaut working for NASA?

 

I've met so many people here who were rich back home ( listening to them) , but couldn't buy a beer. I'm talking about foreigners now. 

 

 

Lol!!

 

We must be meeting the same people! Ive met so many millionaires, people with multiple houses, super model wives, , gangsters, killers, etc etc etc  (all of them farang of course_............All of them though...would know where the cheapest beer was at any given time, also they seemed to have an extraordinary sense for smelling ballons!  Lol!

4 hours ago, Bob12345 said:

Friend of my wife is a pilot for Thai also; he barely flies these days and gets about the same monthly salary an office worker gets.

 

Sometimes I wonder about the salary of some jobs.    Do things get out of skew?   Pilots are important in getting people where they want to go but so are  locomotive drivers, taxi drivers, and etc.

34 minutes ago, welshguy said:

Lol!!

 

We must be meeting the same people! Ive met so many millionaires, people with multiple houses, super model wives, , gangsters, killers, etc etc etc  (all of them farang of course_............All of them though...would know where the cheapest beer was at any given time, also they seemed to have an extraordinary sense for smelling ballons!  Lol!

OMG, are you talking about the ABG, the Archa Beer Gang?

24 minutes ago, Andy from Kent said:

 

Sometimes I wonder about the salary of some jobs.    Do things get out of skew?   Pilots are important in getting people where they want to go but so are  locomotive drivers, taxi drivers, and etc.

Considering what the Prime Minister does and how, he should be on 300 baht/day.  

1 hour ago, Andy from Kent said:

 

Sometimes I wonder about the salary of some jobs.    Do things get out of skew?   Pilots are important in getting people where they want to go but so are  locomotive drivers, taxi drivers, and etc.

To become a pilot you need special skills, invest tons of money into your education, and be lucky enough to find a job once you graduate and be able to pay back all your loans. To become a taxi driver you need to rent a car for 1,000 baht a day. 

 

Sure you can pay pilots less, until they fly your aircraft into a mountain (Lufthansa) or disappear off radar with your millions costing airplane (Malaysian Airlines). I hope the pilot flying my plane gets paid enough, just as i hope the surgeon who will operate on me has a comfortable life outside of work. 

4 hours ago, GinBoy2 said:

This is a far from uncommon situation.

 

I work for Delta, and know quite a few pilots who have either been furloughed or laid off at various airlines.

 

Being a pilot means you don't have a lot of transferrable skills, other than flying a metal tube through the sky!

 

A couple of the Regional Airlines, Trans States and Compass which operated flights for United Express have folded completely leaving a lot of pilots sloshing around the job market.

 

I know quite a few personally. Some have managed to transition to the freight world, UPS & FedEx, but you would be surprised how many are now Lyft & Uber drivers, just hanging out until things hopefully improve in the airline world.

It's world-wide apparently...

I read about an Emirates pilot who is a delivery driver in Dubai pro tem, and i personally know a lady who is genuinely cabin crew and who is now offering "massage services" here in UK.

 

The ironic bit of that is....she works for Virgin Air - no i'm not making it up - honest! ????

 

But in all seriousness, I do wish all these people the best of luck.......come on you vaccine!!!

18 hours ago, Misterwhisper said:

As for the Grab driver in this article, is he subjecting his passengers to an elaborate safety demonstration and handing out tiny packets of peanuts?

He gets the peanuts for a salary, from a "sky taxi driver" to a land based one.

A rather large drop in altitude and money.

Well done that man....... not unusual though..... we've got one working with us at the moment, Malaysian airlines, he's making more offshore than flying a plane......  

11 hours ago, Bob12345 said:

To become a pilot you need special skills, invest tons of money into your education, and be lucky enough to find a job once you graduate and be able to pay back all your loans. To become a taxi driver you need to rent a car for 1,000 baht a day. 

 

Sure you can pay pilots less, until they fly your aircraft into a mountain (Lufthansa) or disappear off radar with your millions costing airplane (Malaysian Airlines). I hope the pilot flying my plane gets paid enough, just as i hope the surgeon who will operate on me has a comfortable life outside of work. 

Commercial pilot, two years training....... Engineer, five.......  As my pilot friend says..... " What do you drive, taxi or bus " ?   

20 hours ago, bodga said:

Will all these  people  looking for a job contact me, I give free  house , electric, water, motorbike 1  person although 2  could  live there if they want but will have to find another job nearby, 15k a  month, take care of  our  land  and garden, no slackers  required expect theyll be queuing up down the road tomorrow.................NOT

A week ago or so I received an email from the Belgian Embassy in BKK (email sent to all Belgians registered at the consulate). They're looking for a gardener for the small but very beautiful Embassy garden in BKK. Salary 18000/mo. Obviously they're looking for a Thai but maybe our Thai wives/TGF know somebody ? ????

18 hours ago, Andy from Kent said:

 

Sometimes I wonder about the salary of some jobs.    Do things get out of skew?   Pilots are important in getting people where they want to go but so are  locomotive drivers, taxi drivers, and etc.

Clearly you have no idea what is involved in becoming an airline pilot or the responsibility entrusted.

On 11/13/2020 at 10:21 PM, rooster59 said:

“The sky is closed,” pilot Mahesak Wongpa wrote on Facebook in a post sharing his story about becoming a Grab driver. Wahesak says he needed to do something useful in his spare time.

Slightly confused.  The name changes from Mahesak to Wahesak then back to Mahesak.  Anybody else in the same state of bewilderment?

 

Rooster, which name is correct?

'nuf sed.

Good for him, but sadly things will take some time before pilots are needed again.  35% international of air routes are closed  China's domestics flights are nearing 100%. 

Does he transport hiso and politicians for free....Thai Airways did!