Pilot Pay Comparison

davetheflyer

New Member
This was ripped off the ALPA board. Before that, it was ripped off the Eagle board. I don't vouch for the numbers, but I thought that it was interesting enough to pass along.
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This was posted on the Eagle board, and I am posting this for all those mainline guys who think the regionals aren't so bad. If your not careful, mainline pay could endup like the regionals so the company can be "competitive". Please stop the bleeding...merge all regionals into the mainline and save our (yes - yours and mine) careers. It will take time and it might hurt a little, but it will pay off in the long run.



Would it be news if Eagle hired Kobe Briant? Maybe we should hire the guy in left field at the Cubs/Marlins game, that would be news. Then we could show 'em.

While I know we're not the big deal when the company is finally making money and the attention is being diverted to the new warm and fuzzy management style of Arpey, we need to do something to make us visible. What can we do to get our blip on the radar screen?

Perhaps a press release where the Airline Pilots Association supports the striking union brothers and sisters of the Retail Clerks Union in California that are either striking or have been locked out of the large grocery supermarket chains.

Then we hit them with the truth that a full time cashier at a major grocery store makes a minimum of $26/hr(with a 40 hour week), gets over $40/hour on weekends and up to $56/hour on holidays, pays nothing for full family health, vision and dental insurance, and has a fully funded retirement/pension program. That's $1040/week without weekend or holiday over-rides.

Then we point out that the pilot flying your aircraft today had an 8 1/2 hour rest period last night after a 15 hour duty day, gets paid about the same $26/hour but it's based on a 17 hour week, pays over $225 a month for health insurance that covers maybe 80% after deductibles and has no retirement. That's $442 a week minus $56 for insurance, $57 for insurance deductibles, (not to mention the lost income for retirement) for a net of $329/week.

Let's review the highlights, shall we?

Grocery clerk (No medical, no check rides, no reduced rest overnights away from home, no security lines or checks)

$1040 a week PLUS benefits and retirement...

Airline Pilot (Medical every 6 months paid by the pilot, check rides, reduced rest overnights away from home, take off your shoes every day you're at work to get through security)

$442 a week MINUS benefits... for a net of $329 a week or less without retirement.

That's $598 a week more to stand at a bar-code scanner and swipe frozen vegetables than an union Airline Pilot makes flying in weather, working around added security caused by terrorists and dealing with passengers. Not to mention the disparity of training costs...

$598 a week is $31,096 a year, or more than that Eagle First Officer makes.

And the company wants to increase medical costs borne by the pilot?

There's your story, and that is news.

Where's Michael Moore when you need him?
 
Um, maybe grocery stores are different in CA but here they make between $7-10 an hour and don't get benefits till they have been there awhile. I am talking WalMart, Smiths, Albertsons. If grocery store clerks really made even $15 an hour I'd be there with my happy face on.
 
I wish I could dig up some of the old Skyway ALPA newsletters that I had written, but we had a pretty good comparison between regional FO and fast food worker, and on a lot of levels, it would have financially been more advantageous for me to work at Wendy's than it would to work as a 1900 FO.

$90,000 as a manager at In-N-Out burger!
 
Im sure baggers make 7-10 an hour.. but I know several people who work for safeway and make 15+ and hour as cashiers and thats starting pay.

According to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Safeway Senior Retail Specialist (whatever that is) wages start at 14.50 and after 5 years goes up to 20.43 and hour and store managments starting wage is 21.47 and hour.

Ryan
 
I make 5.75 an hour sacking groceries
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Cashiers make between 6-10 an hour
 
Baggers arnt union right??
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well I'm sure it depends on the area you live in as far as wages go.. then again its all relative.. cost of living in most the southern states is cheap compared to california..

Ryan
 
The sad thing is that i work at a grocery store and if I worked there full time I'd make about the same amount of money there as i will my first year with a regional airline. Which sucks considering I will have spent a butt load (maybe even 2
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) of money before I get there.
 
The pay being the same...

Wouldn't you rather be flying airplanes than ringing up customers at the local grocery outlet?

Shooting an ILS successfully to minimums or bagging the bread and cheese as you tender change for a twenty?
 
Those cashier numbers seem completely impossible to me. Maybe there's a totally different pay scale for grocery-store cashiers that I don't know about, but I made $6-something an hour at my last cashiering job, which was at Toys-R-Us in 2000. Before that, as a shift supervisor at a coffeehouse, I made $5.50/hr.
 
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The pay being the same...

Wouldn't you rather be flying airplanes than ringing up customers at the local grocery outlet?

Shooting an ILS successfully to minimums or bagging the bread and cheese as you tender change for a twenty?



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Well of course
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But the fact that I'd make the same money asking if you'd like paper or plastic makes me want to cry.
 
I make $6.50/hr weekdays and $7.50/hr weekends here working as a cashier at Wegmans.

I can't believe they make that kind of money in cali!!!!
 
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I can't believe they make that kind of money in cali!!!!

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I'm never sure how much of the news to believe, but what I'm hearing is the grocery store clerks on strike right now here in CA and they make something like $18 an hour + full benies, including totally free health care (i.e., the employee doesn't have to make any contributions--even part timers)...
 
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Um, maybe grocery stores are different in CA but here they make between $7-10 an hour and don't get benefits till they have been there awhile. I am talking WalMart, Smiths, Albertsons. If grocery store clerks really made even $15 an hour I'd be there with my happy face on.

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In california, I know they make at least 15 bucks an hour. to say everyone makes 26 an hour might be pushing it.

I dont know about other states, but in cali you have to "work your way up" to cashier. You start off watering produce or asking "paper or plastic". I hear it takes a few years. So dont think you can just start as a cashier and pull in $16 an hour. right off the bat.

I also heard those UPS drivers make like $20+ an hour. I wouldnt mind doing that. plus you get to wear those cool brown shorts. But you work your way up to that too

-Brian
 
Unfortunately, I have way too much familiarity with the pay scales at various "dead end" jobs due to my employment situation earlier this year.

If you go to a typical chain store, you're looking at anywhere from $8 to $10 an hour to start, without any benefits if you're part time. Get hired full time and you get health insurance as well.

FedEx pays its couriers about $15 an hour, with full benefits, from day one.

At a restaurant, if you work as a server, you'll get $2 to $3 an hour plus tips, with some skimpy benefits which will cost you. If you move up to a bartender position, then you're looking at about $6 an hour plus tips plus tip share. That will work out to around $15 to $20 an hour on an average day, and some days you can clear $300-$400 a shift. You still get skimpy benefits but then you can actually afford to go on your own to a decent health plan where you pay $175 a month on your own.

If you've got a college degree and want to substitute teach, you can get about $100 a day to do that.

So there are a lot of dead end jobs out there where you make more money than you would at a regional, much less as a CFI.

It's crazy. You get more money for mixing drinks than you do flying a multimillion dollar airplane.
 
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Those cashier numbers seem completely impossible to me. Maybe there's a totally different pay scale for grocery-store cashiers that I don't know about, but I made $6-something an hour at my last cashiering job, which was at Toys-R-Us in 2000. Before that, as a shift supervisor at a coffeehouse, I made $5.50/hr.

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AZ is a right to work state. I.E. Wages are depressingly low because it's a non-union area.

Plus, Cali has a "cost of living" factor - unions make getting increased wages to deal with higher cost of living standards much easier to achieve. They may very well be making $15/hr but adjust for cost of livng and I'd imagine that's about the same as $9 or $10 in AZ and/or $7-$8 in the midwest.
 
The thing about the above ALPA/Eagle board comments is that a) just like the airlines and their $300k/yr salaries, hardly anyone in the grocery stores actually makes that top rate; and b) something like 80% of the grocery store workforce is part time, and doesn't get anywhere the pay and benefits the chains allege; and c) just because most regionals have substandard contracts, that means every line of work everywhere should?
 
Yup, I work in the retail Point of Sale field right now. (I program and install computerized cash registers and train cashiers how to use them). I'm in Okla., & I can tell you that no independent grocers around here pay cashiers $10-15 per hr. Maybe some of the Albertsons pay close to $10....maybe.

It's funny what people value.....A fast food or Grocery store cashier makes as much or more than a typical regional FO. or flight instructor. Who has the greater responsibility?

....paper or plastic versus would you like to live to fly another day?......go figure.

fly safe,
- Mark P. "EFC"
 
Agree with 602
When I lived up in VA, DC area my job and my wifes job paid more and we spent much more to live
 
A $150,000 dollar house in the southeast would probably cost you $400,000 on the west coast.

Here's the curious question, on one of the talk shows this morning, the host said, "Well, we want our groceries cheaper".

I almost called in and asks, "Well, if the grocer is able to cut wages and benefits, do you think he's going to pass that savings onto the consumer, or enjoy a larger profit margin (read: bonus) for himself?"
 
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