Pilot Pay

[flyboydh1]

What would everyone think about this for airline pilots regarding pay? 100 seat aircraft or less...FO $50000/yr, CA $80000/yr. More than 100 seats...FO $75000/yr, CA $130000/yr. With an average of 1.5% increase every year for inflation. We all know that no matter what airplane you fly, it takes the same amount of professionalism and skill, whether its a brasilia or a 777. I think we should get paid for what we are (FO or CA), not what we fly, cause in reality, it doesn't matter. I think all pilots and the companies would be happy this way. Profit sharing and 401k could be based on years of service, so longevity is rewarded. A 30 year regional pilot and a 30 year mainline pilot should be equal!

 

[Truckdriver]

You must be from SKYW or hoping to be from SKYW. Keep telling yourself it is OK to fly 70 and 90 seat jets for 50 seat pay.

 

[sluminginpit]

Not a chance! Inflation averages 2.6-4.0%, so 1.5% would cost you money real quick. Also what about pay for experience? You will be happy making the same pay day one on the airplane you fly as you will when you retire? Why is it we as pilots should donate pay to allow people to fly all over the world? Flying is a privilage, you should have to pay a fair market value for the seat. Airline tickets have actually depreciated with inflation, it cost more to fly from NY- LAX 15 years ago! You want fair pay, stand up for your career, what we do can be life threatning, if I don't get paid a fair wage hire someone else! I don't like flying that much!

 

[ohplease!]

What would everyone think about this for airline pilots regarding pay? 100 seat aircraft or less...FO $50000/yr, CA $80000/yr. More than 100 seats...FO $75000/yr, CA $130000/yr. With an average of 1.5% increase every year for inflation. We all know that no matter what airplane you fly, it takes the same amount of professionalism and skill, whether its a brasilia or a 777. I think we should get paid for what we are (FO or CA), not what we fly, cause in reality, it doesn't matter. I think all pilots and the companies would be happy this way. Profit sharing and 401k could be based on years of service, so longevity is rewarded. A 30 year regional pilot and a 30 year mainline pilot should be equal!

Not a terrible idea.

 

[flyboydh1]

Ok, sorry about the 1.5% thing. Make it whatever the inflation increase average is, say 2.5%. Would I be happy with only 4 pay increases over the span of my career? Absolutely, because as a regional FO I wouldn't have to worry about making ends meet, and I would be able to start saving earlier, and investing earlier. I want to be a millionare by the time I'm 60, and the way it is right now, staying at my regional airline for my career, thats going to be tough, and it shouldn't. Plus, I don't care if there is one pax or 400 pax in the aircraft, the level of responsibility is the same. What I'm proposing is absolutely fair pay, especially if profit share and 401k is a bigger part of the entire pay package. I've said this before, being an airline pilot is challenging and rewarding, but I can name 100 other professions that are much more dynamic and innovative, requiring many more FINANCIAL decisions than ours does. Unfortunately, it's all about the money. Thats just reality.

 

[ohplease!]

You must be from SKYW or hoping to be from SKYW. Keep telling yourself it is OK to fly 70 and 90 seat jets for 50 seat pay.

It works for FEDX/UPS and others and everyone is stabing each other in the back to use the knife handle for a step up to get to them for that one rate no matter what plane....whats the difference?

 

[FlyingToIST]

National Seniority list is the solution.

 

[Shobra]

yep. It should be set up more like your plumber or electrician. Years of service equals pay scale. 5 years of 121 experiance equals 5th year pay. What other industry has an equivalent of a retired Delta Captain that goes to work for Skywest and has to start on first year pay?

 

[Green]

What would everyone think about this for airline pilots regarding pay? 100 seat aircraft or less...FO $50000/yr, CA $80000/yr. More than 100 seats...FO $75000/yr, CA $130000/yr. With an average of 1.5% increase every year for inflation. We all know that no matter what airplane you fly, it takes the same amount of professionalism and skill, whether its a brasilia or a 777. I think we should get paid for what we are (FO or CA), not what we fly, cause in reality, it doesn't matter. I think all pilots and the companies would be happy this way. Profit sharing and 401k could be based on years of service, so longevity is rewarded. A 30 year regional pilot and a 30 year mainline pilot should be equal!

Ouch I hope you never make it on a negotiating committee! So you are saying that a captain at the top of the industry should make less than an air traffic controller? I work as a narrowbody fo at one of the lowest paying majors in the industry and it looks like I'm already just about topped out on second year pay. Are you in management? Those payrates might work well if you live in South Dakota or Texas but try buying a home anywhere on the west coast while making 75k/year. Your proposed payrates are about half what they should be in my humble opinion....

In fact you could make more with a career as a nurse than a normal progression with your proposed pay. An air traffic controller would probably make atleast double in career earnings. ouch.....! You're worth more than that man....

 

[D'Angelo]

Im all for it! Why should you pay a 777 crew a lot more then they sit there with their feet up reading the paper on their super long legs. They work a helluva lot less yet make a lot more. Don't give me that more lives in your hand crap. Lets say a crew does an international flight in one day. A full 777 carries maybe around 300-400 depending on the model. So you do 1 leg a day thats 400 lives. A 737 driver working 3 or 4 legs has just as many lives in his hands. Now think of the ATC person controlling your plane. He has thousands of lives in his hand at any given moment. By that logic ATC should be making quadruple or more than what widebody capts are making. The logic just because it has more seats since it pays more is flawed at best. At comair there is a small pay split between 50 and 70 seat which is ok. There is no need for huge pay splits just because there are more seats. Sorry guys its time to change the old school way of thinking. The sooner we all accept our fates the happier we will be and your blood pressures will all go down. Just think of the QOL increase by letting your blood pressure go down. You will extend your lifespan by years. It does no good to go out screaming full pay til the last day and all your other old school BS rhetoric if you drop dead of a heart attack in your 40s. My blood pressure is nice and low. I will be living a long time because I know you have to roll with the punches in life.

 

[CaptainMark]

yeah but you will die drowning in your own bull*#@?...

 

[Truckdriver]

It works for FEDX/UPS and others and everyone is stabing each other in the back to use the knife handle for a step up to get to them for that one rate no matter what plane....whats the difference?

Since you now work for SKYW you will be set since you already believe that it is ok to fly 70 and 90 seat jets for 50 seat pay. I'm sure you are one of the ASA guys who just can't wait until they cut your 70 seat pay to your 50 seat rates since it "works at FEDX/UPS". You can't really throw the UPS argument into the equation because UPS is slightly different than a capacity purchase contract airline flying passengers. And Fed Ex does have different pay scales for larger aircraft so you need to look at the facts before you throw them into the argument.
The only thing that makes sense in this entire thread is the national seniority list so you can hop from one airline to the next and not lose your years of service. For that to happen, every airline needs to be represented by the same union and actually support the union like the plumbers, electricians, steel workers, and auto workers do in this country.

 

[Green]

Im all for it! Why should you pay a 777 crew a lot more then they sit there with their feet up reading the paper on their super long legs. They work a helluva lot less yet make a lot more. Don't give me that more lives in your hand crap. Lets say a crew does an international flight in one day. A full 777 carries maybe around 300-400 depending on the model. So you do 1 leg a day thats 400 lives. A 737 driver working 3 or 4 legs has just as many lives in his hands. Now think of the ATC person controlling your plane. He has thousands of lives in his hand at any given moment. By that logic ATC should be making quadruple or more than what widebody capts are making. The logic just because it has more seats since it pays more is flawed at best. At comair there is a small pay split between 50 and 70 seat which is ok. There is no need for huge pay splits just because there are more seats. Sorry guys its time to change the old school way of thinking. The sooner we all accept our fates the happier we will be and your blood pressures will all go down. Just think of the QOL increase by letting your blood pressure go down. You will extend your lifespan by years. It does no good to go out screaming full pay til the last day and all your other old school BS rhetoric if you drop dead of a heart attack in your 40s. My blood pressure is nice and low. I will be living a long time because I know you have to roll with the punches in life.

I don't care if we pay one rate for multiple aircraft types. What bothers me is guys who think 130k is a lot/fair amount of money. This used to be a terrific career where you could live an upper middle class lifestyle. I understand that in tough times we have to suck it up a little but you seem to be all too excited to top out at 130k.

You could make more as a plumber, landscaper, pharmacist, real estate agent, salsemen, fund raiser, nurse, and many other jobs that traditionally paid less than airline pilots. You don't need to sell yourself short to fly airplanes. Lets not get comfortable with our concessionary contracts.

 

[D'Angelo]

I don't care if we pay one rate for multiple aircraft types. What bothers me is guys who think 130k is a lot/fair amount of money. This used to be a terrific career where you could live an upper middle class lifestyle. I understand that in tough times we have to suck it up a little but you seem to be all too excited to top out at 130k.

You could make more as a plumber, landscaper, pharmacist, real estate agent, salsemen, fund raiser, nurse, and many other jobs that traditionally paid less than airline pilots. You don't need to sell yourself short to fly airplanes. Lets not get comfortable with our concessionary contracts.

Ok first of all not all plumbers, realters, etc make more than 130k /yr. In this day and age realtors are a dime a dozen. Everyone is hoping aboard the real estate bandwagon. The problem is there are so many out there and the housing boom isnt going to last forever. What do you do if you hit a dry spell for 3+ months where you don't even sell a house? No pay check. At least at your airline the worst you can do on reserve is getting paid the minimum no matter if you work or not that month. Not all plumbers clear 100 k either. It depends on the city, the company etc. However I for one don't want to be swimming in that nasty crap you find in the drains all the time. landscapers definately have potential to clear 100 k but definately not all of them make it to the top. Some never even make close to 100k yet still do fine. I agree pharmacists are definately going to make a lot of money. Again not all nurses clear 100 k by a longshot. There are lots of nurses out there making a lot less than that. There are definately some out there that make the big bucks. I would venture to say all these jobs are dependant on making it to the top of your game. You have a lot of competition out there in all of those jobs and your far from guaranteed to be making the big bucks. You have to bust your A$$ for many years to get to that point in most if not all of those jobs. Don't get me wrong even if you don't make it to the top they are still good paying jobs however you have to work a lot harder in most of them than a pilot ever will. You see all a pilot has to do to get to the top is have patience. If he has the fortune of getting hired at a legacy in the 1980s all he had to do was stick it out and no matter what if he passed upgrade he was making some serious money. Especially in the late 90s early 2000s. In every career you are taking a gamble. Some realtors fall flat on their faces and never sell that many houses. Some plumbers never are able to land the sweet high paying gigs. Some landscapers are relegated to doing the smaller yards and cant get in to do the nice high priced neighborhoods. No matter what career your in the grass is always greener on the other side. You can definately get a job that has POTENTIAL to make more than you can make working at an airline but your going to have to work a lot harder than we do as pilots. Most guys can't just walk off the job and have a 100k+ new job waiting for them. You have to stick it out for many years, build up a reputation and work your way to the top. The bottom line is that for how little we actually work we end up doing pretty well. Its easy to trade things around, use a couple days vacation to get 10 + days off in a row a couple months in a row. Not too many other jobs can do that.

 

[spiffomatic]

A full 777 carries maybe around 300-400 depending on the model. So you do 1 leg a day thats 400 lives. A 737 driver working 3 or 4 legs has just as many lives in his hands. Now think of the ATC person controlling your plane. He has thousands of lives in his hand at any given moment.quote]

D'Angelo, buddy...

That "737 carries as many people as a 777 throughout the course of a day" junk does not fly. Point is, a little carlessness on the part of the 777 pilot will cause many more lost lives, countless millions more in lawsuits, etc - I could move 400 people a day a few miles in a 172, and if I crashed, it might be a quick blurb on the local news. As for ATC guys, I don't disagree about the importance of their job (and they make decent coin), but it's a different job, they go home each day when they're done working, and their own particular life is not at stake due to their decisions (unless they OD on caffeine).

An airplane is a revenue maker. Big planes tend to make a company more cash (but, apparently not if you're DL or NWA...) - now... if done right, ala SWA, their busy days in a 737 can pull in good cash for the company and should reflect in good cash in the pilot's pocket, BUT, if SWA starts 6 leg days with 777s, you can be sure they'll push for a bigger cut.

 

[Green]

Ok first of all not all plumbers, realters, etc make more than 130k /yr. In this day and age realtors are a dime a dozen. Everyone is hoping aboard the real estate bandwagon. The problem is there are so many out there and the housing boom isnt going to last forever. What do you do if you hit a dry spell for 3+ months where you don't even sell a house? No pay check. At least at your airline the worst you can do on reserve is getting paid the minimum no matter if you work or not that month. Not all plumbers clear 100 k either. It depends on the city, the company etc. However I for one don't want to be swimming in that nasty crap you find in the drains all the time. landscapers definately have potential to clear 100 k but definately not all of them make it to the top. Some never even make close to 100k yet still do fine. I agree pharmacists are definately going to make a lot of money. Again not all nurses clear 100 k by a longshot. There are lots of nurses out there making a lot less than that. There are definately some out there that make the big bucks. I would venture to say all these jobs are dependant on making it to the top of your game. You have a lot of competition out there in all of those jobs and your far from guaranteed to be making the big bucks. You have to bust your A$$ for many years to get to that point in most if not all of those jobs. Don't get me wrong even if you don't make it to the top they are still good paying jobs however you have to work a lot harder in most of them than a pilot ever will. You see all a pilot has to do to get to the top is have patience. If he has the fortune of getting hired at a legacy in the 1980s all he had to do was stick it out and no matter what if he passed upgrade he was making some serious money. Especially in the late 90s early 2000s. In every career you are taking a gamble. Some realtors fall flat on their faces and never sell that many houses. Some plumbers never are able to land the sweet high paying gigs. Some landscapers are relegated to doing the smaller yards and cant get in to do the nice high priced neighborhoods. No matter what career your in the grass is always greener on the other side. You can definately get a job that has POTENTIAL to make more than you can make working at an airline but your going to have to work a lot harder than we do as pilots. Most guys can't just walk off the job and have a 100k+ new job waiting for them. You have to stick it out for many years, build up a reputation and work your way to the top. The bottom line is that for how little we actually work we end up doing pretty well. Its easy to trade things around, use a couple days vacation to get 10 + days off in a row a couple months in a row. Not too many other jobs can do that.

D'angelo,

Hey what do you have against using paragraphs? The point I was making is that being an Airline Pilot is a career. It takes the average guy/gal a lot of work to make it to the top of our industry. It should pay accordingly. I would argue that the top of our industry should pay significantly more than say the top landscapers, plumbers, nurses, etc. When you factor in responsibility, expertise, continuing training, etc there should be no comparison.

You argue that a lot of plumbers don't make six figures but your own proposed pay scale for pilots would have the majority making less than 100k. That is depressing. In fact the AVERAGE air traffic controller would make more than ANY airline pilot in your little scenario. Please re-read that last sentence.

You obviously have low self worth and/or little regard for professional pilots. I find it to be somewhat depressing that others on this board seem to agree with your assertion that we should make a blue collar wage and be happy to get 10+ days off in a row!!! Big F$#king deal.

 

[gator_hater]

I like the idea with one tweak, there should be an increase for the longevity for the pilot, but there should be no difference for equipment flown. More $$ for the jr guys, less $$ for the top guys. Over the long haul (if you are smart with savings, judging by some that is a BIG IF) you have more in the bank when you are 60, the airlines spend less on labor and training...everyone wins.

The jr guys would love this, getting the sr guys (you know the ones who pay the lion's share of the dues) to jump on will be tough.

 

[pilotyip]

Dangelo, stop dealing with reality this is a pilot board. Green how do you judge someone's self worth? Fly because you like to, this is still a great career.

 

[Regul8r]

Sorry D'Angelo, I agree with the other guy. If a full 747 goes in, that's going to cost ALOT more than a 737 (Imagine a full A380 --- Ouch!). Go back to regulation and hike the pilot pay WAY back up there. We're providing a service that saves time and we should be compensated accordingly.

 

[Green]

You will never get rich flying airplanes.

I know many people that have gotten rich flying airplanes. Unfortunately, I also know many pilots that think 130k is a fair salary for a 777 captain.

 

[D'Angelo]

Dangelo, stop dealing with reality this is a pilot board. Green how do you judge someone's self worth? Fly because you like to, this is still a great career.

Yes this is true. Actually trying to be reasonable and speak realistically on this board doesn't work. We all would love to make $200,000 / yr working 10 days a month. We would all love to have trips that paid 25 hours for a 3 day with a 30 hr layover in hawaii so we can sip Pina Coladas. The market sets what your wages are plain and simple.

People need to learn how to stop living in the past. It is pointless to get all worked up and stressed out about things you have no control over. Its pointless to get so angry only to die of a stroke or a heart attack or other stress related problems. Its still a pretty well paying career for what we do. I mean where else can you easily manipulate your schedule to get 10 days off in a row and still get full time pay. If you really want more money do something on the side with all your days off. God forbid someone actually enjoy their job anymore. Whining is what pilots do best, even in the days when times were booming they still found things to whine about.

I dont think there are many jobs out there where you can work as little as we do and still get paid full time pay. Most of our time is spent waiting around. We are either on an overnight sipping cocktails, waiting for the shuttle, waiting for the late aircraft to get it, waiting to get deiced, waiting for takeoff, waiting for a gate.... Waiting waiting waiting is the name of this game. You wait long enough and you will be at the top of the payscale. When you compare TAFB to actual hours worked its pretty low. We all signed up for going on overnights. When your senior enough you can hold trips that have you home most nights plus all the other days off you get each month. Sure times are tough but the sky certainly isn't falling. Then again Pilots always are good at being drama queens. Maybe some of you should try out on brodway? You could be up for some Tony Awards for best Dramatic preformance.

 

[CaptainMark]

living in the past!!! i am at the top of the payscales and love it...if you except your meager wage and want to do nothing about it so your blood pressure stays lo then you are missing out...go ahead and give up..all those before us in this industry would be rolling over in their graves with your attitude....well.. i appreciate the efforts of pilots past and enjoy my 200+k a year salary..it must suck to be you..your attitude and efforts are disgraceful...once again i cannot believe guys like u squeek thru the cracks...other regional guys must love u..

 

[Green]

D'angelo

Maybe you should go back to college and learn how to write a coherent sentence. I don't know about you but TAFB is working in my book. I'm not whining. I just disagree with your assertion that 130k/year is a fair wage for a major airline captain. That would be a paycut for just about everybody other than Allegiant Air. Even after the massive paycuts most airlines have endured the average major airline captain makes more than 130k.

You should give JO a call I'm sure he'd love to offer you a cheif pilot position.

part of an article from Salon.com



Fast Company magazine actually included "airline pilot" on its list of "The 25 Top Jobs for 2005." <http://hiring.fastcompany.com/fc/articles/2005/01/top-jobs-main.html> "Airline jobs pay in the six figures," says the magazine. That one that had me spurting coffee over my keyboard.

Well, they do, some of them, but that's a bit like saying that acting jobs pay in the eight figures, just because a small minority of actors are lucky enough to become stars. Be cautious of sources citing "average" salaries. Those averages might pertain only to captains, or only to pilots employed by the major carriers. Along with these dollar values often comes the implication that they're obscene or undeserved, failing to explain that a given pilot is liable to be in his late 50s by the time he earns that fourth stripe and a respectable income, after a lifetime of slogging it out for nothing pay and possibly enduring years of furlough. A pilot's early and mid-career struggles, and the fact that many (or most) of them never make it to a major airline at all, aren't routinely quantified in the bullet-point salary rankings.

Another thing to be leery of are quotes of hourly pay rates. While it's true that most pilots are compensated by the hour, those are flight hours, not "work" hours as most people think of them. Those hourly totals might seem outlandish, but they are engineered to account for the off-the-clock ancillaries of the job: preflight planning, downtime between flights, and periods laying over in hotels. Only a fraction of a typical multi-day assignment is spent in the air. Over the course of a month, perhaps 75-80 hours of actual flight are recorded, but a pilot might be on the road for upwards of three weeks.

At airlines, where the seniority system rules all, raises -- along with upgrades from first officer to captain -- are based on length of tenure and little or nothing else. Increases come annually, and modestly. An eighth-year first officer at United now grosses approximately $85,000. Perhaps that doesn't sound terribly unreasonable for a position with a large corporation, but you have to consider the typical career path endured by the typical pilot before he or she achieves such level of tenure. In the United States, aviators do not begin their careers with major airlines, where the average age of new hires is somewhere between 35 and 40. In other words, you could be 42, 48, or even 50 years old before bringing home that $85,000.

Prior to that, a civilian-trained pilot faces long stretches of de facto apprenticeship, usually flying regional planes. And prior to that, he or she probably built time as a flight instructor, teaching doctors to fly Cessnas for eight bucks an hour, or in some other entry-level capacity for next-to-nothing wages. And prior to that, he or she needed to amass the requisite FAA licenses and ratings to become employable in the first place.

(We'll mostly stick with civilian ranks for the purposes of this discussion. Civilians account for close to half of all airline pilots and represent the bulk of those now being hired. Military fliers frequently have the comfort of armed services pensions, and they are often -- though certainly not always, as we'll see later -- able to bypass most entry-level stints once in the job market.)

As we speak, pilot recruitment is in fact robust, but the majority of openings are at the regionals, where new-hire pay (at the helm of a $20-plus million Embraer or Canadair) is in the vicinity of $16,000-$22,000. Between a quarter and a third of all airline pilots are working at regional carriers, and the percentage is going up. A senior captain at United and a junior first officer at United Express are airline pilots just the same -- indeed one can argue the latter has the more challenging position -- but the captain's salary might exceed the first officer's by a factor of 10.

And don't forget, there is no sideways transfer of pay or skills. A laid-off crewmember from United, Delta or Northwest is free to fly elsewhere, but must begin again as a junior copilot at probationary pay and benefits. In America, around 5,000 airline pilots remain on indefinite furlough status from the biggest airlines (and some of the small ones too). For understandable reasons, not too many of these out-of-work airmen are champing at the bit for a chance to start from scratch at a regional.

At Mesaba Airlines, a Northwest Airlink affiliate founded in 1944, pilot compensation now begins at $21,000 per year. (For flight attendants, it's $14,000; for mechanics, $27,000.) Average base pay for all Mesaba pilots, captains and first officers together, is roughly $48,000. Crewmembers and union representatives have been holding informational picketing recently, as management has put forth a Section 1113c motion in an attempt to nullify its pilots' contract. With its parent company, Northwest, now in Chapter 11, Mesaba wants to chop wages 19 percent and impose a 60 percent increase in health insurance premiums. Apparently $21,000 is an untenable expenditure for a highly skilled technical position.

The public should understand that for a civilian pilot, just getting to the point of being a competitive candidate for this airline and numerous others like it -- all the Links, Expresses, Eagles, Connections, and other suffixed regionals out there -- requires an outlay somewhere in the range of $30,000 for primary training over a period of years -- plus, usually, a college degree.

Competition for the more elite jobs, or what exists of them, is brutal. A cockpit seat at JetBlue, for instance, is among the most coveted (starting pay $53,000, give or take) Good luck getting your application noticed in a stack with 10,000 others, many belonging to highly experienced furloughees from United, Delta, Northwest and elsewhere. Opportunities exist overseas, but there too the bar is set high. Rapidly expanding companies like Emirates, who take on mainly expatriate crews, expect candidates to come with hundreds or thousands of hours of advanced jet time. With the glut of furloughees, they, like JetBlue, have little trouble finding applicants to their liking. Last year, my own application to the fast-growing Qatar Airways was rejected out of hand. Less than two weeks after I'd mailed a résumé off to Doha came a thanks-but-no-thanks letter. Most of my experience is captaining regional turboprops, or as flight engineer on older cargo jets. They want a logbook fat with high-tech Boeings and Airbuses.

Hiring trends are the primary driver of how quickly an individual advances from bottom-feeding first officer to, ideally, captain at a major airline. The industry is cyclical, yes, though the amplitude of the waves is tough to predict, dependent as it is on industry health, attrition from retirements, etc. Some people hit the cycle at just the right time; they move quickly up the ladder in a lucrative career that hardly skips a beat. Others end up like me: twice-furloughed castoffs whose annual take-home totals have been as low as $11,000. My own example is somewhat worst case. For the sake of comparison, let's take a look at somebody else -- a colleague of mine whom we'll call Dan:

Dan is 39 and started off as a Navy fighter pilot. After leaving the service in the early 1990s, the best job he could find was a $12,000 per year position with a Northwest Airlink franchise hubbed out of Boston, flying 19-seaters -- often as my copilot -- until the company's collapse in 1994. Afterward he caught on with American Eagle, earning $15,000 as a first officer based in San Juan, where he shared an apartment with three other pilots. Around this time, the airlines began their mid-'90s hiring spree, and Dan, unlike most of his friends and co-workers, managed to land a slot at one of the industry giants. His opening salary was only $26,000, but rapid and continuous hiring pushed him swiftly up the seniority list. Within five years he was flying international routes on widebody aircraft. By age 35, he was making well over six figures.

Then came the downturn. Dan's employer happened to be one of those household names that by 2001 would find itself in a heap of trouble and wearing the collar of bankruptcy protection. Now in his 11th year, Dan flies 747s to the Far East and brings home $95,000 annually, but only a few years ago it was substantially more. "My pay is about half of what it was in 2002," he notes.

 

[spiffomatic]

Captain Mark,

You are my hero. Actually you come across as a little arrogant and perhaps in need of self affirming praise from others the way you toss around your salary numbers, but - and I SINCERELY mean this - PLEASE KEEP IT UP - keep reminding people what they should be making in this line of work.

The casual way people toss around the "oh... I love my job and will still happily do it at greatly reduced pay" crap makes me want to throw up. I think some idiots would actually like to take you down a notch or two, rather than push hard and steady back up towards fedex type payrates across the industry.

Some pilots seem to feel that to be happy with their lives, they have to be happy with their jobs and pay, no matter how meager. I'm in the RJ world and I can't imagine anyone being pleased with the current state of affairs here, and at most of the majors as far as pay, retirement plans, etc go. Personally, I'm mad as he!! about the pay - but I'm still pretty darn happy with how my life outside of the job is going.

Not every pilot makes me proud of the profession, but the good ones do, and often, and sometimes daily justify the once industry-wide lofty wages. The trick is to get most of us proud of what we do, recognize the significance of what we do daily, and angry about the beating we've taken over the past few years.

 

[CaptainMark]

Captain Mark,

You are my hero. Actually you come across as a little arrogant and perhaps in need of self affirming praise from others the way you toss around your salary numbers, but - and I SINCERELY mean this - PLEASE KEEP IT UP - keep reminding people what they should be making in this line of work.

The casual way people toss around the "oh... I love my job and will still happily do it at greatly reduced pay" crap makes me want to throw up. I think some idiots would actually like to take you down a notch or two, rather than push hard and steady back up towards fedex type payrates across the industry.

Some pilots seem to feel that to be happy with their lives, they have to be happy with their jobs and pay, no matter how meager. I'm in the RJ world and I can't imagine anyone being pleased with the current state of affairs here, and at most of the majors as far as pay, retirement plans, etc go. Personally, I'm mad as he!! about the pay - but I'm still pretty darn happy with how my life outside of the job is going.

Not every pilot makes me proud of the profession, but the good ones do, and often, and sometimes daily justify the once industry-wide lofty wages. The trick is to get most of us proud of what we do, recognize the significance of what we do daily, and angry about the beating we've taken over the past few years.

salary numbers are known..not tossing anything around..they are published...these other guys think lo pay is ok and to just accept it...i am in full belief that mine and your salary should be much higher for the work that we do and what it took to achieve that skill...guys on here talk about how easy it is..well doctors that have done hundreds of open heart surgeries think it's easy to do them also..and they don't get checked every 6 months or take medicals in order to do them...people like buttangelo have no clue!

 

[BluDevAv8r]

Im all for it! Why should you pay a 777 crew a lot more then they sit there with their feet up reading the paper on their super long legs. They work a helluva lot less yet make a lot more. Don't give me that more lives in your hand crap. Lets say a crew does an international flight in one day. A full 777 carries maybe around 300-400 depending on the model. So you do 1 leg a day thats 400 lives. A 737 driver working 3 or 4 legs has just as many lives in his hands. Now think of the ATC person controlling your plane. He has thousands of lives in his hand at any given moment. By that logic ATC should be making quadruple or more than what widebody capts are making. The logic just because it has more seats since it pays more is flawed at best. At comair there is a small pay split between 50 and 70 seat which is ok. There is no need for huge pay splits just because there are more seats. Sorry guys its time to change the old school way of thinking. The sooner we all accept our fates the happier we will be and your blood pressures will all go down. Just think of the QOL increase by letting your blood pressure go down. You will extend your lifespan by years. It does no good to go out screaming full pay til the last day and all your other old school BS rhetoric if you drop dead of a heart attack in your 40s. My blood pressure is nice and low. I will be living a long time because I know you have to roll with the punches in life.

Have you heard of the metric "Available Seat Miles?" And "Revenue Passenger Miles?"

Let's say a 757 flies 3000 miles and has 200 seats over 6 hours. That airplane thus generates 600,000 ASM's (200 seats x 3000 miles).

Now let's take the 50 seat RJ. That RJ flies 6 hours and carries 200 passengers as well but it takes 4 flights to do it at 1.5 hours per flight at an average stage length 400 miles...for a total flying distance of 1600 miles. Over the course of its day the RJ carried 200 passengers however it only generated 80,000 ASM's (50 seats x 1600 miles).

Thus, the 757 generated 7.5 times the available seat miles than the RJ for that time frame. This is how the airline is going to look at things...right or wrong.

-Neal

 

[THUGLIFE]

We should top out at nothing less than 400k.
Where are these people coming from? They were the flight instructors who only charged for flight time. uke:

 

[Andy Neill]

yep. It should be set up more like your plumber or electrician. Years of service equals pay scale. 5 years of 121 experiance equals 5th year pay. What other industry has an equivalent of a retired Delta Captain that goes to work for Skywest and has to start on first year pay?

Any industry that recognizes that retired Delta captain's freedom to choose to work for SkyWest at first year FO pay or not. There is such an FO at SkyWest.

 

[Airway]

Yes this is true. Actually trying to be reasonable and speak realistically on this board doesn't work. We all would love to make $200,000 / yr working 10 days a month. We would all love to have trips that paid 25 hours for a 3 day with a 30 hr layover in hawaii so we can sip Pina Coladas. The market sets what your wages are plain and simple.

I love when you guys devalue your own self-worth and careers by joining into the mantra of management. The longshoremen are lucky they don't have pussies like you working in their industry, or else they'd be making $9.50 an hour with dental and then take 20% in ten years because, well, the market sets the wages. They have balls and Union strength and unity. If the Market really set the wages (and it's not that easy, cry all you want about the 'invisible hand') regional pilots would be making more than skycaps and burger flippers wouldn't be making 5.70 an hour.

I like how all it took was 5 years to screw up what decades of airline pioneers built. No thanks to people more than willing to bend over and take it in the as* because they have let management convince them that they are worthless.

 

[HA25]

living in the past!!! i am at the top of the payscales and love it...if you except your meager wage and want to do nothing about it so your blood pressure stays lo then you are missing out...go ahead and give up..all those before us in this industry would be rolling over in their graves with your attitude....well.. i appreciate the efforts of pilots past and enjoy my 200+k a year salary..it must suck to be you..your attitude and efforts are disgraceful...once again i cannot believe guys like u squeek thru the cracks...other regional guys must love u..

Isn't it amazing how many whores are in our industry now? These market wages guys sound like they're management moles or something!

Heck if you wanted to take market wages, and let managements have their way, and get rid of unions.. we'd have $50K/yr wide body captains and 25K/yr Fo's.. and they're would still be people flooding the HR depts for jobs!

These people just don't get it, and this profession is in a major downward spiral.. The inflation adjusted wage of a 747 Pilot back in the day, was something like $30,000/month... today we're luck to see 2/5 that.. and the work schedules have also gotten worse..

Times like this, I'm glad aviation has become a secondary career for me..

Don't waste your breath Cpt Mark.. and thanks to the FDX guys for doing their part to keep the bar higher.