I would argue that the best pilots are the ones that consistently keep the flying "boring". That is, they don't get the plane out of a sticky situation, they avoid it getting into one.
Pilot Compensation Up To $590,000 Per Year
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I would argue that the best pilots are the ones that consistently keep the flying "boring". That is, they don't get the plane out of a sticky situation, they avoid it getting into one.
The pilots used to leave the cockpit doors open when I had an empty plane, but this was just on a Brasilia or an ATR 72. More common on the Brasilia. Fascinating to be looking out the windshield during landing. Very different perspective from looking out a passenger window. Yep, they get busy at times, but speaking as a former regional F. A., most of our flights were 45 minutes long, there wasn't time to get bored. I can't imagine the boredom on flights to Asia.I once ferried a 767 from EWR to JFK. As a ferry, no passengers, we had wider latitude on rules.
I allowed a flight attendant to sit on the jumpseat during the 30 minute flight (lots of vectors.) and made sure she understood sterile cockpit. She could listen and watch, no questions, no talking.
She was wide-eyed on parking. “I had no idea how busy you guys are!”
Yeah, because you’re not allowed to come into the cockpit when we are busy. It’s called sterile cockpit for a reason.
They see us at cruise and think that’s what the job is…
We got a 3% raise last year, which of course isn’t matching inflation. Reason was, the move towards incentivizing hard work through large bonuses. Company hits sales targets, sizable bonuses (like double digit % of salary). Of course, semiconductor industry is cyclic and so bad years are expected, no wonder they want to do that, it lowers the risk to the company (high pay during a down year means the company really loses money). So that makes my budgeting really fun, I have to make plans based on one number, and ignore what I might have coming to me—and when a bonus does land, squirrel it away before I do stupid things with it. I suspect I just have to learn how to hold onto large cash holdings.
[Side effect I’m seeing, they elected to make it a yearly bonus instead of quarterly, so I’m not convinced that some won’t slack for 6 months then pick up the pace, making life miserable for the rest who like to plod along at a regular pace. Also: More than a few of us have loused about leaving right after that bonus time… you can’t get it if leave the day before it is awarded. To me, that’s no small risk to the company (brain drain, multiplied by finding qualified engineers), but that’s my uneducated view from the trenches.]
You might be right, and I’m sure they appreciate you thinking that way.
However they might have doubled everyone’s bonus, hoping you all as a collective are thinking the same thing, and will try out outdo each other.Perspective is funny. i was reading your post and thought to myself, never had a quarterly bonus (maybe some quarter kicker $s here or there like if i had a sales job or whatever, but bonus has always been annual). Yeah - the post bonus quit does happen (especially if the employer is not keeping up with industry salary and has less tenured workers IMO) though I have found throughout my career it is not uncommon to be able to negotiate a signing bonus for the bonus you are leaving on the table, especially when the industry has shifted to bonuses at 15% - 30% of one's comp. Same for some portion of stock awards.
There were at times really good quarters so we’d see something. Profit sharing of some sort. Seems like they kept revising the program as the years went by. I remember the old days (the problem of not job hopping), 20 years ago, then over the last few it settled into only after the yearly performance reviews.
I did nearly lose a coworker, and while I didn’t get the exact numbers, the signing bonus would have easily covered any losses. I really should be lining up interviews, just for the experience. Maybe I’d be pleasantly surprised…
I did nearly lose a coworker, and while I didn’t get the exact numbers, the signing bonus would have easily covered any losses. I really should be lining up interviews, just for the experience. Maybe I’d be pleasantly surprised…
No raise, 12 years now. Time to call it a day. Corporate aviation is a joke compared to the pros.
Question for the pilots. Is the variance in the article between max pay for narrow body versus wide body planes justifiable when something goes wrong?
To be transparent I ask not knowing much about aviation, but enjoy reading these threads and understanding a little bit more. What going through my head: Like many have said, I want the pilot to be skilled when the plane is in the air and something goes wrong, but frankly I would say that about any plane I personally am in.
To be transparent I ask not knowing much about aviation, but enjoy reading these threads and understanding a little bit more. What going through my head: Like many have said, I want the pilot to be skilled when the plane is in the air and something goes wrong, but frankly I would say that about any plane I personally am in.
The variance in pay reflects productivity - fly more people, make the airline more money per hour, get paid more per hour. It's an old principle.
That article really distorts the pay. It really distorts the career path.
The pay per hour is for those hours that the airplane is actually off the gate. There is no pay for pre-flight planning, having to wait at the airport, talking with passengers at the airport, doing preflight duties/set-up on the flight deck, performing the pre-flight inspection, working with flight attendants, saying goodbye to passengers at the destination, or getting to the next flight.
That is all done gratis. We do a lot of work for free.
We only get paid when the airplane is in the air. There are at least a couple of hours of work for each flight for which we aren't getting paid.
That's part of the reason why pilots like the long-haul flights - the unpaid to paid work ratio vastly improves with one long leg vs. several short legs per day. Some pilots get paid for 70 hours/month, some 80, some 90 or more. It depends on a variety of factors.
Long haul is more efficient. More hours per flight and more hours per day at work.
Pay at my airline varies from about $85/hour to start to $350/hour at the peak. That will go up in the next contract.
What the article, and a quick scan of the scale, fails to tell you is:
- How long you spend at each point on the scale.
- How long it takes to get to the top of the scale, if you ever get there (many do not).
- How much you had to borrow (or give, in the case of the military) to get hired in the first place.
- How lucky (or unlucky) you were in choosing your airline - as many airlines go belly up and you start the scale over.
- How lucky you are in staying healthy - a large number of pilots end up being unable to fly because of medical conditions.
- How many hours you get paid/month at each point.
My starting point on the scale was $27/hour. By year six, my airline was in bankruptcy, and my point on the scale was year 6, Airbus 320 FO, at $54/hour, getting 70 hours a month, while working 21 days/month away from home, and taking extra days commuting from Vermont to NYC to get to work.
Lots of responsibility. 17 years of experience. Gone nearly every day of the month.
Not very much money for the work.
I once had a flight attendant come up to the flight deck on a 747 going to Narita from SFO. She was 60 years old, had been with the company 38 years. She told me that it was "hogwash" that I got paid more than she did.
I was still in my first year, getting roughly $2,000/month, gross, at $27/hour at that point, so I asked her what she got paid. She declined to share and said that I (meaning me) will be making more than her, even though she had 38 years of flying.
I asked what her college major was - she didn't have a degree. I told her that my degree was in Astrophysics.
I asked where she flew before a major airline to get the experience to become a major airline flight attendant. She hadn't flown anywhere else. I told here that I had spent 11 years in the US Navy, including night carrier landings, and two combat deployments, before the airline would even interview me.
Then I looked at her and said, "So, it took me 15 years to get here, including a degree in Astrophysics, combat missions, and landing on a carrier at night, while you walked in off the street a got a job?"
"AND YOU make more than ME?? You're right! That IS "hogwash"!" She didn't stick around...
Everyone envies my job - but very, very few are willing to do what I did to get it.
Particularly when 2001-2015 had very little hiring and very little movement in the industry. Young people who became pilots during that time got stuck at the very bottom of that scale for many years, despite huge loans to get their ratings.
That is why there is a pilot shortage right now.
Hopefully news articles about senior pilot pay at major airline with 35 years of seniority don’t attract the wrong people wanting to get into this field.
I know a lawyer that charges $400 an hour ($350 if they feel sorry for client). They graduated law school back in 1992 from University of Miami and worth the pay.
Younger folks see big $$$$$ but don’t realize how much work, dedication, sacrifice and schooling is involved. Same goes for some high paying medical career fields.
I notice younger folks get annoyed / mad when they hear about people 30 years older than them make over half million dollars a year.
I know a lawyer that charges $400 an hour ($350 if they feel sorry for client). They graduated law school back in 1992 from University of Miami and worth the pay.
Younger folks see big $$$$$ but don’t realize how much work, dedication, sacrifice and schooling is involved. Same goes for some high paying medical career fields.
I notice younger folks get annoyed / mad when they hear about people 30 years older than them make over half million dollars a year.
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That's one manifestation of the entitlement mentality, which is less common in people of her age & generation than it is today. I see the same thing in my career. Sometimes it's out of ignorance - people simply don't know what it takes to get certain types of high paying jobs. Common sense should give them a clue: if it pays so well, there must not be enough people who can do it, and there's always reasons for that. TANSTAAFL.
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I am concerned it will attract the wrong types to be totally honest ( more so because it’s a lot easier to get on with a major now ).
The entitlement mentality is very obvious today.
I found it much easier to relate to older Captains when I got hired versus the FO‘s I fly with today.
That’s just my opinion and observation.
i wonder if the airlines’ problems started when aviators were replaced by mba consulting firm alumni in the “c” suites?
my eye surgeon brother recently came to his tipping point when the young mba newly hired as ceo of his hospital became insufferable. he quietly called her bluff and packed it in. he was the only cataract guy and generating many multiple $1000s of revenue weekly. five ancillary staff were subsequently laid off from the outpatient surgery center.
my eye surgeon brother recently came to his tipping point when the young mba newly hired as ceo of his hospital became insufferable. he quietly called her bluff and packed it in. he was the only cataract guy and generating many multiple $1000s of revenue weekly. five ancillary staff were subsequently laid off from the outpatient surgery center.
It will attract wrong people. But, by design, they should be washed out.
Are few manage to get thru? Probably.
But, it is absolutely insane to even discuss this pay. We as a society agreed to reward people that truly don’t contribute anything, and we reward them much more.
People who are paid much more just bankrupted 16th largest bank in the US. And we still talk pay for people that are responsible for hundreds of lives.
Atlas Air Flight 3591 - Wikipedia
The FO needed lots of hand holding and coaching cause he was very incompetent.
Luckily this wasn’t a passenger jet with 200 passengers.
Education and training are human interactions, therefore, not perfect.Atlas Air Flight 3591 - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
The FO needed lots of hand holding and coaching cause he was very incompetent.
Luckily this wasn’t a passenger jet with 200 passengers.
Air Force pilots like you have excellent training and experience.
Lol, I am not air force pilot.
But, I know some that I would not give two drawn cows on paper to watch.
Not at USAFA, close by. But work with them closely.
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