Starting out, doing chartering and tiny regional runs, pilots make terrible money. Like, less than some fast food places. This may have changed recently with the shortage, admittedly, I haven't kept up.
Believe it or not, many pilot instructors also make surprisingly little money.
Apparently, it's one of those careers where you grind with hopes of getting called up to the big guys - the big airlines or delivery companies.
There are ebbs and flows in that. Sometimes there's too many pilots, and you get stuck down. I think we're in a shortage now, which is good for them.
"What's the difference between a large pizza and a regional carrier first officer job?"
"The pizza can feed a family of four."
That used to be an accurate joke, but now even the regionals are starting to have to pay somewhat more competitively and, in many cases, offer 5-figure signing bonuses to join for a multi-year period. If I end up retiring from tech in my mid-50s, I may even go seek an airline job. (I have the 1500 hours already, so I could reasonably quickly walk onto a regional.)
A friend was interested in this. Bachelors degree not required any more.
It costs $93k-$115k, $900/mo housing, and food not included for 13 months at an AZ, Texas, or Florida school to get all certifications to fly to become a pilot instructor.
Spend 2 years as a pilot instructor (somewhere) at a paid $17.25-$20 per hour to get your 1500 required hours. Housing? Multi-engine certified for 100hrs gets an $860/mo bonus.
4.5 years as a regional airline pilot:
2 years first officer paid at $90k/yr minimum
2.5+ years as captain paid at $135k minimum (75 hours per month guaranteed for both)
7.5 years total to become a major airline first officer.
$74k to $120k per year for first officer minimum pay. Can pick up trips also if available.
13.5 years total to become a captain (6years as a first officer). $285k salary minimum.
20 years total and 6 years of seniority as captain: $337k
66% make it to retirement at 65 due to medical requirements.
36% are able to work at that age as they are considering extending the age to 67 domestically due to a pilot shortage.
One carrier tried to reduce hours to 750 to become a regional pilot but that failed.
It does not need to be done in the US. To get an FAA unrestricted ATP certificate, you need to build on top of other FAA certs, but you can use experience gained worldwide to satisfy all but a trivial amount of specifically called out instruction hours.
If a pilot comes in with enough experience, it's a quick process to convert their foreign certs to FAA certs (which usually involves checkrides).
They don't, the first year contract increase would yield 21% increase.
> An agreement could include 21% pay increases in the first year of the contract, Isom said. Factoring in higher 401(k) contributions by the end of a four-year deal, a captain flying narrow-body planes would make $475,000 at the top of the scale, up $135,000 from current pay, while the most senior captains of wide-body planes would make $590,000 per year, a $170,000 increase from today.
Pilots have to disclose all medical provider visits at each medical re-certification. Many mental health conditions are disqualifying; many commonly taken medications are, in practice, disqualifying either by the medication itself or the underlying condition. Even ones which will eventually allow the resumption of flight crew duties via a special issuance process will still put you out of work for some period of time while your regular medical certificate is revoked pending the review for special issuance.
The system overall discourages seeking help for certain conditions. Even seeking help for excessive snoring/sleep apnea could put your medical (and ability to work) at risk.
It's wild to think about the per-hour pay and that they still "only" get paid from brake release to door open at the other end - no other labor.
On a similar vein, when Delta finally had to give in and furlough pilots, those pilots were placed on a 30 hour pay status per month with zero flying obligations to Delta and all active pilot benefits (travel, etc). Only 30 hours a month on the paycheck seems like not a lot until you actually add up the hourly pay and realize it's still a healthy $2000-4000 check a month, at the minimum.
how come? Requires a LOT of flying hours and some luck to get a job at a big airline company. Many days spent away from family. Responsible for 100+ lives every time they fly. If there’s a problem mid flight (rare but happens), it can be extremely stressful and 100’s of lives can be at stake. Think on-call at a tech company is stressful? I’m glad I don’t that have THAT kind of on-call lol. And obviously the fact that learning to fly a plane is not an easy skill to learn…
Even with unions it doesn't help. In my European city which has extensive public transport, bus drivers are barely paid above minimum wage and work under pretty terrible conditions.
Can they? American barely eeked out a profit in 2022 after big losses post-Covid. Stock is down 60+% over the past five years. Travel demand is still up, so maybe they will do better in 2023.
This feels like the epitome of capitalist short-sightedness. There must be a way to build loyalty with your pilots by treating them well during the downturns and spending more on training pilots? It feels like there are massive layoffs and cost and pay reductions every 3 years, just to be followed by a boom shortly after and complete shortage of pilots.
Many long-term skilled labor positions have this handled with a generous salary, not treating the skilled labor like bus drivers picking up extra routes for some nominal pay increase that period.
Pensions are typically protected as a separate entity, not tied to the fate of the company. The corporation pays into a fund, and the pension invests that money into something that pays out a guaranteed dividend in perpetuity. Some pensions may exist that are managed by the company (like social security, if you consider the government a company) but the majority are not.
The major issue is probably government. The FAA has a mandatory retirement age of 65. It also requires substantially more hours to fly commercial than European countries. Both arguably marginally increase safety but at a very high cost.
But the airlines did lay off too many pilots during COVID.
The total number of registered pilots (general aviation included) has fallen almost 10% since 2013 [1]. There are simply far fewer pilots in the pipeline, which effects everyone downstream including airlines and military, even while the number of instructors has increased.
