Airline pilot pay/entitlement/bonuses

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Sean7432

Well-Known Member
Hi all,

As a mil guy considering a transition to the majors, I'm trying to getting a realistic idea on how to calculate my pay:

1. Are the "payscales" on airlinepilotcentral.com pretty accurate? (http://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/airlines/legacy/united_airlines). I'm assuming the scales show "gross" pay before taxes, right?

2. How often do you fly more than the minimum monthly guarantee (~70 hrs)? How many hrs do you fly/month on average?

3. Do you make additional money on top of the hourly wage? I understand there is per diem, but are there any other entitlements like Housing or Cost of Living Allowances you get paid in addition to the hourly wage? Is there a bonus for holiday flying?

4. How does "profit sharing" work? Is that like an additional yearly bonus in addition to the hourly wage based on the airline's success? How much extra $$ does profit sharing usually work out to?

Thanks all!
 
1. Take the hourly rate times 1000. That is a good gross pay estimate.

2. Pretty rare. If you are senior you can bid lines that pay an extra 10 hours a month but I don't wanna work that hard. If you're junior I'd say forget it. However...

3. It's very common to be able to work extra and make more. Where I work it's straight time. No COLA or bonus for night or holiday. That sounds like government stuff. Doesn't apply to the airlines.

4. No idea. We don't have that.

I wouldn't obsess over money. Know the first year is going to be unsustainable salary wise. Second year should approach 100K at a legacy for the most part. But there is really a lot more to think about than money. I bypassed upgrade for years to have better schedules. No regrets at all.
 
1. APC has pretty accurate numbers.

2. I almost always fly more than the minimum per month. I try to credit about 85-90 hrs. That may mean flying about 80.

3. Holiday pay, night override, company paying extra for days with poor pilot coverage, selling back sick time all add to the pay check.

4. Each company is different with their profit sharing. Our profit sharing this year came out to an extra month's pay distributed either as 401k or just a simple check. Uncle Sam and Alpa still take their cut.

(Jetblue)
 
Something that is important to the questions you're asking, in general, is the old adage that "it depends".

You seem to be trying to pin down actual compensation at the airlines, which is obviously a great metric to have when deciding what you want to do post-mil career. I tried to do the same thing a couple years ago, and unfortunately came to the conclusion that the "100 x the hourly pay rate" is the best general predictor.

There are so many variances airline-to-airline, aircraft-to-aircraft that you can't pin down the numbers for even one, much less all of them. Further complicating things are that bid-packs and trip mixes can vary month-to-month at the same airline, and seniority movement up or down can change what you might be able to hold in each of those bid packs. Aggressive trip-traders may be able to use opportunity and knowledge of the system to improve their trips, either to increase pay or increase time off (whatever his/her personal objective is), while someone who is not as deft may end up with a much less desirable schedule. Not to mention variances in per-diem, cancellation pay, deadhead pay, min-trip or min-daily pay, etc., that also vary between airlines.

Each of these little changes is going to impact how much money is going to show up on your paycheck, and you as the pilot sometimes have very little control over those variables.

My advice is to not try and pin down specific pay, because you just can't.
 
ClarkGriswold said:
Plan on a budget that is monthly guarantee x your hourly rate. Anything over is fun money and can/will vary every month.
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This! A million times this! I hate flying with guys who live at work. You're making it harder for our negotiating team to create a good to great wage scale for "minimum to average schedule." I don't care if you made $200,000 working your butt off. It's "MMMTO" for a reason! Guarantee times rate is the only money you can reasonably count on, and if you're not living within that budget you're planning poorly. I get it, life happens; but, recalibrate if you need to so the equation works!
 
Thanks all for the replies. So what I'm gathering is that min monthly guarantee x payrate = is what to expect, but you'll probably end up making a bit more based on overtime/bonuses/profit sharing? Does anyone else concur with the hourly payrate x 1000 rule as being a pretty reasonable estimate of salary?
 
Sean7432 said:
Thanks all for the replies. So what I'm gathering is that min monthly guarantee x payrate = is what to expect, but you'll probably end up making a bit more based on overtime/bonuses/profit sharing? Does anyone else concur with the hourly payrate x 1000 rule as being a pretty reasonable estimate of salary?
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that's generally it. Realistically my min guarantee is 75 hours but I average about 80-90 hours of credit a month as a line holder and without picking up open time on days off. With that said, and like others are mentioning, I never PLAN on earning more than 75 credit.

Nobody mentioned per diem as an entitlement. I think that qualifies, as that is essentially a food allowance. per diem rates vary from airline to airline, but I would expect anything between $1.50-$2.00/ hour out of base (no idea what is common on the legacy side of things). So that works out to about and extra $3-500 a month at my shop.
 
Sean7432 said:
Thanks all for the replies. So what I'm gathering is that min monthly guarantee x payrate = is what to expect, but you'll probably end up making a bit more based on overtime/bonuses/profit sharing? Does anyone else concur with the hourly payrate x 1000 rule as being a pretty reasonable estimate of salary?
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That's the general rule. Hourly x 1000.

Our 1st year min guarantee is only 50 hours, but due to trip rig, I've yet to see less than 70, so I don't budget on 50. More around 60-62.
 
Sean7432 said:
Hi all,

As a mil guy considering a transition to the majors, I'm trying to getting a realistic idea on how to calculate my pay:

1. Are the "payscales" on airlinepilotcentral.com pretty accurate? (http://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/airlines/legacy/united_airlines). I'm assuming the scales show "gross" pay before taxes, right?

2. How often do you fly more than the minimum monthly guarantee (~70 hrs)? How many hrs do you fly/month on average?

3. Do you make additional money on top of the hourly wage? I understand there is per diem, but are there any other entitlements like Housing or Cost of Living Allowances you get paid in addition to the hourly wage? Is there a bonus for holiday flying?

4. How does "profit sharing" work? Is that like an additional yearly bonus in addition to the hourly wage based on the airline's success? How much extra $$ does profit sharing usually work out to?

Thanks all!
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As people have said in posts above, it would behoove a pilot to plan their finances on bringing in monthly guarantee at their hourly rate. Some big industry changing event comes along and grinds stuff to a halt overnight, then at least short term finances like paying the mortgage are not an issue on the first day of the 'new world order.'

2. How often do you fly more than the minimum monthly guarantee (~70 hrs)? How many hrs do you fly/month on average?

There are sometimes instances where shortstaffing, training, weather, airplane substitutions, etc. can great some extra pay opportunities for pilots and it depends quite a bit on the airline and their work rules as to how lucrative of a system it is. My answer to your #2 question is, every month for the past six months is above monthly guarantee by a significant amount. I've been anywhere from 120 to 180 hours each month for the past half year, usually still holding to 13-17 days off, and almost a month's worth of "payback time" in a bank to be used to drop trips with pay later on in the year. The gravy train will taper off at some point, but in the meantime, those who are flexible can do well.

3. Do you make additional money on top of the hourly wage? I understand there is per diem, but are there any other entitlements like Housing or Cost of Living Allowances you get paid in addition to the hourly wage? Is there a bonus for holiday flying?

My last airline had holiday pay on seven holidays per year. You can guess the seven that they were and what was great about it was there was something for everyone. The people that wanted extra money and didn't care about working on a holiday, could easily work the holiday and take the extra 4 hours of pay. There were enough of these people that it actually seemed to make getting off work on the holidays slightly easier for junior people, because those who chase the extra money took a bunch of the trips that flew over the holiday. For the remaining group who did want the holiday off and got stuck working it, at least the holiday pay took some of the frustration out of it.


4. How does "profit sharing" work? Is that like an additional yearly bonus in addition to the hourly wage based on the airline's success? How much extra $$ does profit sharing usually work out to?

I suppose it's similar at most of the airlines that have it...a percentage of the company's profit for the year. Where they'd all differ is the specific definition of profit and just what is included and what isn't, when calculating the amount to be shared with employees. For some major airlines it was around 20% of an employee's salary last year, so you can see why it has become a major talking point in carriers that are in contract negotiations. Changing it or eliminating it to get something else, is not an insignificant amount of money...right now, that is.
 
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