Traditionally a pilot at a regional airline might start out earning less than $50,000 per year, but get hired on by a major airline and that goes up quickly into the six figures, and well over $300,000 for senior captains flying widebody aircraft overseas. Some earn over $400,000.
Yet we’ve heard a lot of complaining by pilots recently. Contracts are open for negotiation at American Airlines, Southwest, and United. In fact,
- United Airlines pilots have turned their back on CEO Scott Kirby who went to meet them personally while they were out protesting.
- Southwest Airlines pilots have made a show of walking out on their CEO more than once.
- American Airlines pilots call themselves exploited and even went on TV warning passengers to stay away from the airline.
Here are Southwest Airlines pilots complaining they’re underpaid (earning up to $270,000) because their airline flies only smaller 737s and doesn’t fly to far-flung destinations.
It’s hard to recruit the best pilots when @SouthwestAir's pay and benefits lag significantly behind the competition at other carriers… pic.twitter.com/il9Rz9nw3d
— Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (@swapapilots) February 23, 2023
To be sure, pilots ‘deserve’ the money they make in the sense that a private company offered them money and their representatives agreed they’d take it – and they show up to work in exchange for that check.
They make more than they otherwise would if they’d been less successful lobbying the government to limit the number of pilots by making it (1) harder to become a pilot than anywhere else in the world, including Europe and (2) requiring early retirement (age 65). Combined with the number of early retirements airlines paid for (with taxpayer funds meant to ensure employees stayed employed by their airline ironically) we have a pilot shortage and that gives pilots leverage.
Even in normal times pilots can easily throw a monkey wrench in an airline, by expressing concern about minor issues with an aircraft which don’t affect its airworthiness. A bit of that in coordinated fashion and the carrier can’t operate reliably.
As a result airlines work harder to keep pilots happy than they do other work groups. They often get more or better food during trips, nicer hotels, and other amenities not available for instance to cabin crew – who are far more easily and quickly replaceable.
However there’s a lot of jealousy between pilots and other work groups. One crewmember writes on social media,
“You guys are way overpaid just because you are a work group made up of almost exclusively white males. And you’re taking money from the rest of us. Who are struggling to survive.”
In response a Southwest Airlines pilot writes an open letter laying out how rough they have it.
- You have to pay for flight school and build up the necessary flight hours (which their own unions lobbied for!) to become a pilot. Some even join the military to get the flying in, and that’s risky!
- They have to pass tests, and continue to do that each year. And go through medical evaluations.
- Your schedules are based on seniority (again, thanks to their unions) and when you start you “will work weekends and holidays… [y]ou will get off-peak vacation weeks for a long time.
Privately many pilots realize that being entrusted with $100 million machines and flying them around for a living is a pretty great gig. It’s what kids dream of as their jobs growing up. Many also build side businesses in their time off (insurance is a common one).
There are absolutely legitimate beefs about the pilot lifestyle. If you have a family you spend a lot of time apart from them. If your airline is operationally unsound you wind up in cities you never expected to be flying to. And you may not even get your hotel scheduled properly (take matters into your own hands, book the room yourself, and fight for reimbursement which might take months).
Under no circumstances, though, are commercial airline pilots candidates for a sequel to Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath nor to claim the mantle of Cesar Chavez. They aren’t the exploited worker class, flying up to 80 hours per month.
Being a pilot, which is fun, and making six figures for 80 hours in the air isn’t “easy.” But it’s something people go into eyes open.
I’m not smart enough to know what experienced airline pilots should earn. But I do know, like everyone else, they’ve lost at least 20% in purchasing power over the past two years. There’s no rational reason that they shouldn’t expect a fair increase in pay.
“deserves” is a dumb term. People should make whatever the market will bear. If there aren’t enough pilots (as is the case now) their pay should increase to attract more talent.
That process is happening and it’s the way it’s supposed to work.
Maybe newer generations don’t want to spend 30-odd years flying a mostly-60-year-old plane at a broken airline, no matter the pay?
“You guys are way overpaid just because you are a work group made up of almost exclusively white males. And you’re taking money from the rest of us. Who are struggling to survive.”
And has Color and Gender have to do with ANY of this? and the Pilots are TAKING money form the rest of us? Geez… What a lame argument.
Gary, I’ve been curious about pilot and crew work rules? What are the limits? How many days would it take a pilot to work 80 hours?
I bet Tim Dunn knows!
Should be nothing to do with race and gender. But they make quite a bit and some of them have learned to hand the system to get more return… Which is sad
When have you ever seen pilots peel off from the cabin crew when they’re in the hotel van coming from the airport? I’ll answer: never.
As for pilots taking money away from other unions, that’s a specious argument, at best. No one makes less because pilots or any other union earn more. Period.
And again this whining about pilots causing a pilot shortage. The international retirement age for pilots is 65. Why would raising it solve problems here? Both unions, the airlines and the government say a higher retirement age solves little or nothing–that many older pilots in their 60s are often out anyway with medical issues
As for the regional airlines and the alleged shortage of pilots, many are still laggards with pay. When someone has to shell out a heap of money and time for flight school, starting pay of $40-$50K isn’t going to cut it. It’s a pipeline, not a people issue
White males are about 70% of pilots. That number has been falling and will continue to do so with very public pledges – such as UAL targeting 50% women and minorities for new pilots. It will be very hard to meet that 50% in the short- and mid-term.
I live in a United international hub. Senior pilots(neighbors and friends) typically fly to Europe RT 5 times a month. Each trip is three days. One day over, one day off, one day back. 15 days away from home, 80 hours in the seat.
Not a bad gig.
First off. “Everything is worth what the purchaser will pay for it” So yes, they are “worth” it.
Secondly I’m willing to argue that people who take other people’s lives into their own hands deserve to be well compensated.
Third. On the other hand it is a rather good gig. Time away from your family but a very reasonable workload overall.
It’s quite simple. People are paid what they are paid for one of two reasons:
1. It’s what the market determined. Market rates are based on complex factors, the most important of which are supply and demand. You might not like the price of something, but the reason for it is easy to trace.
2. They are in a union. The union held the company hostage and demanded more money than the job is worth in a free market. The company buckled.
I have my own opinion about which one deserves their salary. But let’s at least make sure we understand the reason for the salary because they are entirely different.
No beef with pilot compensation. These guys are highly trained, many with degrees in engineering, physics, and math. But I do take issue with the whining. Pilots have a great job and are well compensated. Does informational picketing at airports accomplish anything except laughter and head shaking among passengers whose jobs and compensation are not as fulfilling?
All unions and company management in every industry eventually realize they have a common interest – screwing over the customers. They’re just arguing about how they should divide up the pot.
As a pax, whenever I see these numbers I honestly wish they were paid more, maybe a lot more. It’s actually quite disconcerting to me that even in the best case scenario for the pilot, most doctors and many lawyers on a flight will be getting paid more than the guy keeping the plane in the air.
The highest paid professions are those that are heavily regulated, whether by government agencies, NGOs, unions, trade groups, or some combination thereof. Doctors, lawyers, and airline pilots all make so much money because their livelihoods are heavily entrenched in government oversight and bureaucratic norms. Doctors have their state boards, lawyers have the state bar, pilots have the DOT and their union. There’s a lot of “process” around these fields, and they’ll always make a lot of money as a result. I work for tech companies and have made it fairly lucky joining unicorn startups and making it to IPO, but that’s far from a sure thing. If you want a sure thing, go into a field where it takes 10 years before you’re a gainfully employed & compensated professional. Once you do, you’re set for life.
YES
They have upwards of 400 lives their hands on the plane and a 777-9 is 442 million dollars and a 737 is 90 million
I would say too much money paid for too much incompetence flown. How much money annually was sitting inside that AA cockpit at JFK?? At least a million bucks worth, and look what happened. The level of stupidity and dereliction was nauseating. No, of course they DO Not deserve the level of pay they have. Not only do they not deserve it, but the mere fact they couldn’t acknowledge a hold short instruction and then follow it, says volumes. Self flying and automated cockpits can’t come soon enough!!
Ooohhh….I’ll wait for all the pilots to comment about how their “spending power” has gone down and that they just might not be able to swing that $2M that sumner retreat on Martha’s Vineyard this year.
Do Bloggers deserve what they make?
The marketplace determines pay rates in the same manner it determines the prices we pay for everything we buy.
Do basketball, football, baseball players “deserve” millions of dollars for playing a game.
I love keyboard Cowboys
Kind of an interesting thought – back of the envelope calculation – how much am I, as a passenger, paying the pilot?
Let’s say I’m on a flight from DFW to LHR – let’s say it’s a nine hour flight. There might be a relief crew onboard, but let’s say there isn’t, they just work the nine hours. Typical transatlantic flight has 275 people. If the two pilots are working for $300k/year for 80 hrs/month, that’s (2 x 300000) / (12*80) = $625/piloting hour. Which means that I, as a passenger, am paying a total of 625 / 275 = $2.27/hr for the pilots, or $1.136/hr/pilot plus benefits.
For a commuter flight of one hour, with 50 passengers and pilots earning $50k/year, I’m paying 50000 / (12 * 80) / 50 = $1.04 per hour per pilot plus bennies.
And that’s why the salaries are what they are. And I pay the Uber driver more per hour on the way to the airport. It’s called scalability.
Do Hollywood stars deserve to make $100M for one movie?
Sports entertainers $1M per game?
Must I say, the majority of these old fat cat pilots are DOUBLE & TRIPLE DIPPERS (LIKE THE GUYS WHO SERVE IN CONGRESS)! They probably earned their wings at TAXPAYER expense by signing up with the air force, served a term of duty or two, retired, and then joined different airline companies and demanding fat salaries. I suppose they will or still are living off taxpayer dollars for all their medical coverages courtesy of the VA. They also engage in outside businesses to bring in more to their coffers. These guys need to pay back us hard-working tax payers.
$300K household income is the baseline to live a moderately comfortable life in most American city’s. It’s probably low for SF, NY and LA though. A pilots career means that they need to be the sole breadwinner, with the partner doing most of the heavy lifting on the child raising and household maintenance side. Given the already high barrier to entry $300K is not a high salary, I suspect we will see salaries rising closer to $500K region soon, which is what you need to be earning to afford a decent lifestyle in the bigger cities.
Here in USA mandatory age for retirement of commercial airline pilots 65. Not in other countries Canada & Japan for example. These over age 65 pilots do fly in USA’s airspace.
$50k intro pay for pilots is insanely low. That is an unfair ripoff. Should be at least $80k.
$300k-$400k senior pay is insanely high. But they should definitely be paid at least half that.
Unions make everything worse for everyone in the long run, unless you’re a crony union boss that sucks from the system.
Airlines can only blame themselves for pilot shortage by forcing pilots to abide by political gullibility with the fake vax.
Time to get more bullet trains in place.
>White males are about 70% of pilots. That number has been falling and will continue to do so …
So, pilot demographics are basically racially representative of the over-30-years old population of the united states (~75% white) and gender representative of the labor force participation of women (~25% in high-level roles)
Yes they do deserve to be paid commensurate with the responsibility of the position like a surgeon. $300,000 is fair. $400,000 is excessive. However, the union blackmail is not appreciated. A lot of pilots actively use their positions to denounce and block any changes that improve the industry and make things safer. There is no free market forces for Pilot wages because the government, bureaucracy, and unions ensure there is no free market.
All this talk of reducing the percentage of pilots who are White males is racist, hateful, bigoted, and most importantly unsafe. Equality is a myth. It does not exist in nature. Naturally one group will be better than others at something. Whites are better at Olympics swimming and blacks are better at Olympics running due to differences in muscle fiber twitching. It’s the same for scholastics and Piloting. White Males have the highest safety ratings compared to pilots of other races. The safety and accident data backs this up. More rigorous training is only part of the difference. The ability to harness the training and have the discipline is a function of race. When the U.S. has the lowest commercial aviation accident rate ever, why would we want to reduce the percentage of White male pilots and put in other groups. It’s ludicrous.
@AFairTexan – No one gets military retirement “after a term of duty or two”. (Unless you get a disability payment.) It’s 20 years or nothing. Many pilots probably retire after less than that, then do reserve duty to get to 20 years, but that’s how the system is written for everyone and plenty of military members do that. I think it’s possible to combine things like military service with federal employment and serving in Congress, but again, those rules are there for everyone. Whining about more talented people needing to pay you back makes you a jealous loser who probably sits on a couch in his mom’s basement, drinking cheap beer, watching the Miss Universe Pageant and complaining about the uggos.
@Nick – “Moderately comfortable life”? $300K household income puts you in the 96th percentile for US income. So everyone below that is uncomfortable? You have a skewed perspective of what it takes to live well. And not only that, pilots (and all aircrew), can and do live anywhere. One of the perks of the job, they can commute to work from more affordable areas. I sincerely doubt many pilots are stupid enough to officially live in high tax NY, SF, or LA if they don’t have a spouse or family obligations who demand they do so. Some do, yes, but they don’t have to. And when you’re starting out at $50k, you certainly do. That $300k only comes at the end of a long career.
Just to clarify, the number of pilots with degrees in engineering, physics or math is incredibly slim. Try ex-used car salesmen, college dropouts, and ex-military. Tested every year?- so are the Flight Attendants. Commercial pilots are generally overpaid and treated like spoiled brats.
I see where this garbage is coming from. Most pilots are white!
That’s where this is coming from.
If ever there were a place where merit overrides ALL other considerations this is it
Flying long international routes can be an incredibly good gig as – depending on the duration of the flight – many routes require one or even two extra relief pilots on board (meaning up to a grand total of four pilots on one flight). I have several UA 777/787 friends that fly LONG Pacific routes out of ORD, they spend a good deal of their time onboard snoozing @ $200+/hr for FO’s and $300+/hr for Captains. With so many pilots on board it’s easy to go out on a trip where they log over 30 flight hours but get zero takeoffs or landings, they often have to be scheduled for the simulator so they can stay current for takeoffs/landings.
These articles miss so much, 80 hours of flying in a month is what your paid, everytime you see a pilot in the airport or on the ground, guess what they are not getting paid. The maintenance delay they are dealing with, not getting paid, the unruly passenger on the ground, not getting paid, the late arriving aircraft, not getting paid, the ground stop, not getting paid. You only get paid for what you fly. Most schedules have days that are over 12 hours on duty, and guess what you may only fly 5 hours and get paid 5 hours! Than you get to a hotel and are still not getting paid, more time away from your home and family. Being away from your house has included expenses, something small break? Who’s going to fix it, not you, looks like your calling a professional to fix something small.
Liability as others have said, there is a tremendous amount of liability and risk in the job. 2 medical a year, when something minor health wise happens your career is gone! All that schooling/ training and tkme thay you spent is over! Training events every year, if you fail them you will be terminated.
The aircraft itself is worth over 100 million dollars, plus every soul that you are responsible for, how much is a life worth to you? To me not enough money could cover it if something happened to my family. People will pay an extreme amount of money to next day a box to be delivered, but complain when they have to buy a seat for themselves with a carry on for over 200 dollars.
When you purchase a ticket, an extremely small percentage of that ticket goes to the 2 professional pilots at the front end of the plane. Heck when you take an uber you are paying that driver more than a professional pilot flying you in a 100 million dollar airplane 35,000 ft above the earth.
If everyone on board paid 5ish dollars per flight hour on a ticket a pilots fee there pay would double.
Certainly do not begrudge anyone getting paid what someone else is willing to pay, but airline pilot is an easy job. As a whole, they are the laziest professionals there are by a mile.
Delta pilots just approved their proposed contract so Delta now becomes the highest paid airline. Again.
The bigger part of this agreement is that D-ALPA said that 48% of Delta pilots will get BIGGER increases than the “base” increase because Delta is banding pay between aircraft types so that all of Delta’s widebodies larger than the 767-300ER will be paid the same rate (ie 767-400, A330 (all types) and A350 pilots will make the same amount for the same seniority and seat) and there was pay banding for several of Delta’s narrowbody aircraft types as well.
Delta already has announced pay increases for its non-union employees on top of what it gave during covid, so nearly all Delta employees have increased their pay post-covid.
Delta has provided investor guidance that will lead to a significant charge due to the one-time payouts for pilots BUT Delta is still guiding to a higher level of profit margin than American, Southwest and United for the first quarter.
None of those airlines have settled contracts for near as many employees so their margins will suffer.
Delta is expected to begin a significant series of route announcements based on their new aircraft deliveries; they are also expected to finalize a large twin widebody between the A350-1000 and B787-10 with the larger A350 most likely.
Delta is, once again, leading and if other airline CEOs don’t open their checkbooks pretty wide, this could be the summer of labor unrest at a number of airlines.
As a former flight attendant I must say that in the beginning of my career, I thought our pilots were a bit overpaid. That all changed in a flash when we once unwittingly flew through an awful electrical storm. Our Captain and FO brought us through it and landed the aircraft like true experts. Any one of us would have paid them a million dollars on the spot if we could have!
Absolutely. And take the money out of bloated management salaries.
Not so @ Tim Dunn, again, please don’t twist the facts to fit your narrative. Delta’s bulk of its fleet are not wide bodies but in fact, narrow bodies of which the bulk of its pay comes from. Everybody knows that the larger the aircraft the higher the pay. Period. There’s no other way around that. United Airlines is the only US airline with the largest wide body fleet. Larger than AA and DL’s fleet combined AND growing!! The contract you’re referring to will be the floor reference for UA’s pilots to bargain and negotiate on. Not the Ceiling. Therefore, when it’s all said and done, United’s pilots will end up being the ones who end up wit the highest paying contract, not only because they have the highest promotional chance of moving up the totem pole, but they have the largest fleet of wide bodies out of ALL US airlines with the highest wages, making the the most attractive carrier to work for, thus making them the richest of the bunch. It’s all just simple math!
GPG
Reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit. All you wrote has nothing to do with either Delta’s pilot contract or what I wrote
United and Southwest pilots are mighty ricked at management stalling
And Scott Kirby was the only one that lied when he said that United would lead the industry w a post COVID pilot contract. Not only did Delta lead and United follows but Kirby is staring down a very big labor bill on top of all of the debt he will have to issue most of which is to replace United’s industry oldest fleet
The pilots are flying aircraft costing up to $350M/each. Oh…and there are 300 lives on board. Let’s do a bit of digging into the limitations. While it gets a bit more complicated when flying with “additional crew members” (international and long haul flights), by federal law the basic limitations are no more than 8 flight hours in a consecutive 24 hour period. No more than 32 flight hours in 7 consecutive days. No more than 100 flight hours during any calendar month. No more than 1000 hours during any 12 calendar months. These pilots are highly trained (like a physician, attorney, dentist, etc,) to take that $350M aircraft AND the priceless lives from point A to B safely and efficiently. I don’t hear too many people complain that a physician, attorney, dentist, etc. makes a pilot’s salary or even more. I can’t speak to when a surgeon MUST stop practicing surgery but airline pilots must retire at age 65. That’s it…career over. I teach them. I know. They are worth every cent they are paid. As for Ms. White’s comment, the flight attendants are fantastic. They are the “first line of defense and offense” at any airline. They, too are highly trained and are often subjected to poor treatment by some airlines’ management and by unruly passengers. I’m pretty sure that most of the major airline pilots appreciate the flight attendant’s role. I tell my pilots to be nice…be especially nice to the flight attendants. They must serve a cocktail party from point A to point B for 200 people (who would rather not be there), at FL310, and “walk” to B while they’re at it.
Average CEO pay for top US firms is 23 mil. Are they worth it?
The simple answer is that if there is someone willing to pay what the pilots are paid, there is a market and worth has been established. What anyone else thinks is immaterial
Response to Justin: seriously? If you make $300,000 a year as a pilot, you can definitely pay somebody to take care of something small that breaks at your house. That sounds like lame excuse buddy. I wish that they would take some of that money and give it to the ticket agents, the ramp clerks, and the other people behind the scene operations who have to fight yearly after year for a better contract. People that were in my field got their pensions frozen and only make about 1,400 a month after giving 30 to 50 years at the company, while the pilots complain that they’re not appreciated makes me laugh! Granted their jobs are stressful, and they live away from home during those 80 hours and mind you that’s spread out the whole entire month, same as the flight attendants which complain that they don’t make enough money, while they make double their amount the ticket agents and ramp clerks make. I personally know flight attendant that has put in their time making $60 an hour now, granted they only fly 80 hours a month but they are allowed to fly more than that should they want to pick up more hours, while again, the clerk’s on the ground as well as the ticket agents on the ground are making half that amount doing a heck of a lot more work. I think they need to be respected as well. Granted they don’t have a college degree, but then again, you don’t need a college degree to be a flight attendant or even an airline pilot though, however, most airline pilots do have college degrees.
As a 40 yr flight attendant my answer is very simple, HELL YES!!! I fly the long hauls and I appreciate making it home safely to my family. I trust my pilots to see to it that I do. Tom Cruise plays a pilot in the Top Gun movies and makes millions. He doesn’t have my life in his hands and those that do deserve even more.
Hey Americans,
It’s still racism even when directed at a race you’re told to hate by the TV.
Kindly,
Everyone else.
How much should a pilot get paid who flew to China during 2021/22 (after US lockdowns and did not have Covid) and had to remain 24/7 in a encampment room with cold box meals (no requests accepted), tv channels in Chinese, and limited internet? The crews were driven to the airport via armed guard in a isolated bus.
An easy fix to this is to reevaluate pilot certifications.
Black: 300 hrs, no ATP req’d, +$100,000 added to salary.
Hispanic: 500 hrs, ATP req’d,
+$50,000 added to salary.
Asian: 2,000 hrs, ATP req’d
-$30,000 subtracted from salary (privilege).
White: not eligible to be pilots
Boom….equity!
Pilots are over paid by 30%. Yes they do have to go through flight school, and they have alot of responsibility,but they also have unions who get them whatever they want. They can go on strike, and shut down routes, but then again so can ramp personnel. Ramp workers, have to go through rigorous training, are subjected to freezing temperatures during the winter, and searing heat in the summer; which pilots do not, sitting in a cushy climate controlled flight deck. Rampers can shut down an airline also. Without them, the aircraft sit on the ground, unable to be brought in to gates; baggage doesn’t get unloaded; etc. And who do you think makes sure the aircraft is loaded properly for weight and balance, so it doesn’t take a nose dive? The rampers. Pilots have cushy hours/schedules, and still complain. I’ve heard more of them babbling in the cockpit, about the 50 acres of land they bought, for their 2nd home, while us rampers can’t get a decent wage. Take 50% of te Pilots hourly wage, and divvy it up amongst the ramp people who work equally as hard, under different circumstances.