ACP446 What Airline Pilots Really Make

We've seen an uptick online of pilots sharing their pay stubs, but what do pilots really

make and why is it a bad idea to share your pilot pay stubs online coming up in this

episode of Aviation Careers Podcast.

Hi, I'm Karl Valeri, I'm an airline captain and also an instructor on the Airbus A320

and have been a coach for people in Aviation Careers since 2001 and in today's episode

we're going to do a deep dive into pay and also why it's a bad idea to post your pilot

pay stubs online.

But for those of you that are looking for one of those free scholarship skies, you know,

we're the actually publisher of one of the largest scholarship directories out there with

over 120 million dollars in scholarships.

You can find more scholarship skies for free at aviationcouragepodcast.com slash free.

So first, let's just get this out of the way.

What do pilots really make?

Okay, I'm going to pull numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and it's going to look

a lot less than you've seen online with these people that are actually out there placing

their salary.

So the number median salary for scheduled transportation in 2024, 2024 was 239,200.

That's the median salary and that's the ones that are right in the middle, not the average

but the median.

Okay.

That means half or above and half or below that.

So that's airline pilots is what we're talking about air transport scheduled air transport.

That number puts you in the top 10% of commercial pilots, commercial pilots are those that can

get paid to fly air transport pilots, ATP's, the people we think about at the airlines,

the big major airlines, those are the people we're talking about.

And they're the top 10%.

There's a lot of people out there making money flying it includes flight instructors

etc.

I'm going to do a breakdown later in the podcast as far as what the different areas in the

career get paid like flight instructors etc.

But first, let me just, I want to stay this right off the bat.

Why it's a bad idea to share your pilot pay stub online and I know what you're doing.

Some people are, you know, they're signaling wealth or whatever they want to do.

It's good for their ego.

I see this all the time when I'm jumping in on other airlines, people share their pay

stubs and I just go silent.

I think it's really important just to go silent and not say a word about how much you

make.

As a matter of fact, our book of the month is the millionaire next store and you can check

that out on our reading list.

Check it out on our reading list because one of the big things they talk about in the

millionaire next store is you don't talk about how much money you make and how much wealth

you have.

So let's talk a little bit more about why it's a bad idea to share your pilot pay stub online.

First of all, all that financial information you see people crossing it off, you know,

you can still see some of those.

I know people redact all that information but you can see things like your airline base,

your maybe even your employee number might come out, your pay rate, longevity, all those

kind of things.

That info can be used for identity theft and fishing and actually for a targeted scam,

that type of thing.

So make sure you don't do that.

Also another thing I want you to do, you're working for an airline, you have a contract

with that airline and with that company and some airlines not just discouraged but prohibit

sharing internal documents online and pay stubs are actually a possible document that they

can deem that is one of the documents that's a shared documents, internal document,

okay?

So they can argue that whether that's true or not, you have to talk to your attorney.

So do me a favor, don't do that.

So back in the day when we started as airline pilots, another reason that they didn't

and back in the days only like 2001 and before that, one of the reasons they wouldn't let

us publish our pay stubs online was because the airlines were embarrassed at how low the

pay was plus they didn't want us going for assistance like food stamps and housing assistance

and one of the reasons is that they didn't want the general public knowing how low the

pilot pay was.

I give you an example, one of the airlines I worked for and I'm not going to name them

so don't ask.

I made an average of $600 per month and that was back in the early 2000s, that's nothing

and that was very, very low and a lot of that was because of certain things to do with

training contracts, etc.

You're seeing a shift now where regional airlines are now paying well but they're also making

you sign contracts where if you leave you're going to have to pay them back.

So that's how things have shifted so the pay is better but you're also signing a contract

these days.

Remember back in the day when I started you had to pay the airline to go work there.

So say you went to the airline, most people made about $16,000 a year, you had to pay

them usually about $15,000 just to work there.

That's called pay for training and you wound up not making any money that year obviously.

So that's a tough one.

Also another reason not to share your pilot pay stub online is a lot of the contacts gets

lost really fast, you know, because pilot pay is very complex and we're not having

that episode on pilot pay and do a deep dive into that.

But there's different pay like per dem, there's block air hour and credit, I've talked

a little bit about that in the past, international, there's domestic pay, there's night overrides,

there's all sorts of sort of sick premium.

Some people have called red slips, green slips, yellow slips, double pay, triple pay, that

type of thing.

So if you want, this is what I want you to do.

If you want to check out how much money you make and you want to share that, send me

email, feedback at aviationcouragepodcast.com, but more importantly, not just how much you

make a year, but I also want to know how much you make per hour.

And that's an actually interesting one.

So take the number from your paycheck, how much you made that year, divide by the number

of hours that you flew, that's how much you got paid per hour.

Really interesting.

I know on one of my past podcasts, I talked about how some people make $1,000 per hour

flight time, it can happen, and you'd be surprised.

If you're an airline pilot listening to this right now, do that little exercise, take

how much you made this year, divide by the number of hours you flew, you'd be surprised

how much you make per hour, because there's a lot of people at the low end of the pay scale

that wish they made anywhere near that.

And the reason being is because they're plane instructors, and they all get paid for

the time that they're actually in the airplane, whereas the airlines, you could paid a lot

of different ways with a lot of different overrides.

Another reason not to share your pilot-paced up online is there's some permanence online.

If you share it online, it's there forever.

Just remember that.

I know people do all these different types of online services or have services where it

immediately gets rid of your postings, et cetera.

There's many of them out there.

I'm not going to name names because I don't want to suggest any.

But remember this, if you put something out there, if it gets deleted, it's still going

to be online.

And also remember, people do screenshots.

A great example.

I had somebody who crashed an airplane, took a picture of that right away, shared it

on Facebook, and the flight school said, hey, listen, get rid of that.

They did.

But in the meantime, all sorts of people started taking screenshots and it went viral, went

all over the internet.

So don't do that.

Make sure that when you post something online, you're thinking it's going to be there forever.

So these are the reasons you don't want to share online.

And again, like I said, check out our book of the month, The Millionaire Next Door, The

Surprising Secrets, Americans Welting, and one of the things that they don't do is they

don't share their pay online because one of the things that's going to happen is people

are going to start targeting you for ads and for services and those type of things, especially

when people find out, say you're an airline pilot.

Happens to me.

I actually have trained my wife to not tell people I'm an airline pilot.

I usually tell people I'm a flight instructor, which I am.

So the perception is a little bit different.

I really don't want people to know I'm an airline pilot because then you get in and

data with ads and obviously people wanting money, et cetera.

One of the things though, I'm a big fan of giving it charities, a huge fan.

As a matter of fact, our charity of the year is The Red Cross and we give a lot of money

to The Red Cross.

We really love that charity.

But do me a favor.

Check out The Millionaire Next Door.

I think that would be very helpful for you to read that to understand why the wealthy

doesn't share that online.

So let's get into it.

Let's get into what pilots really make and we're going to start in the beginning.

We're going to start with the CFI.

The reason I say CFI, the flight instructor, certified flight instructor is that's what

most people do to gain hours.

And I know there's lots of other ways that you can build hours to get to the airlines.

But I'm not talking about that.

I'm just talking about what the majority of people do.

So as a starving CFI, and yes, we do have that website, starving CFI, pilots make between

30 to $60,000 per year as a flight instructor.

So if you want to teach, it's a great thing to do.

I highly recommend people getting into teaching.

And if you're going to get your CFI, get your double eye, your instrument instructor also,

that really helps you and the airlines helps you prepare for the airlines and it does

really look good on a resume.

But it's one of those things you have to realize.

What you're doing as a CFI is you're building hours to get to that next level.

Can you make a living as a CFI?

Yes.

But you need to do specific training.

There's a lot of people out there that make money as a flight instructor.

You're doing training in jets, vision jets, serious.

There's many people out there making a really good living.

My friend Max Trescott makes a great living, flight instructing.

And I think one of the things that is important to know is if you want to have a life of teaching,

you can do it.

I'm doing it.

I'm an instructor at the airlines.

I'm not going to share how much I make.

But instructors at airlines do very well and life is grand.

And you get to pay it forward.

You get to actually teach people things.

It is the coolest thing when someone actually passes a check ride.

So there's a couple things you're getting as a flight instructor.

You're getting actually hours, right?

You're also getting that satisfaction that you're helping the next generation of pilots.

So about 30 to 60,000 as a flight instructor.

Then most people move on to a regional pilot.

I know some people talk about those low hour corporate jobs that I'm talking to the majority.

When you go to a regional airline, you're going to make between $50 to $100,000 as a first

officer.

There are some that are lower.

There are some that are higher, especially with these bonuses that they have.

So think about that.

As a first officer, you're making $50,000 to $100,000.

Good salary.

But as a captain, then it's really where you start making money.

You're looking at $120,000 to $200,000 as a captain at a regional airline.

And more.

And more.

I mean, back in 2003, I was working at a regional airline.

And one of the check airmen there, they were making $200,000 a year and that was in 2003.

Fast forward.

There's people at regionals making $300,000 a year as instructors.

And I get it.

At the majors, the instructors are making a lot more than that.

So let's move on to the major airline.

And this is the elephant in the room, right?

This is the people that are sharing their paystubs online.

There are some regional pilots that are sharing their paystubs online.

But normally when you start at a major airline, you may only be making around $100,000.

It can be as low as the lowest I've seen is in the 50s.

But normally it's around $100,000 a year.

Some first, second year, second year, first officers are making $200,000 a year.

Little extra work.

Maybe they moved up to a wide body and they're making some extra pay, et cetera, picking

up hours, et cetera.

But you can make between that $100,000 to $150,000 and even the $200,000 range is the second

year first officer at a major.

But definitely is the first officer making about $200.

When you're captains at a major, those are people first year captains.

They can be as low as $200,000 or less, even a little less than that.

Because if you've been like a street hire captain, and the reason that happens is a lot

of other people don't want to upgrade the captain because they like their lifestyle, but

you can make really good money.

But in general, in general, most narrow body captains are making around $300,000 a year.

Most wide body captains are ranking around $400,000 a year.

I have a deep dive coming up on all the different ways to get paid.

I have done one in the past.

There's a bazillion different ways to make extra money.

And if you want to learn how to do that, you can look at some of my past videos.

And I talk about how airline pilots have made a million dollars a year.

Yes, I've seen them.

I work with people and I talk to people in private.

I don't share it online and don't share the pace of online.

And that's one of the things we talk about.

Most of the people that are working extra and that are narrow body to wide body captains

that are working hard.

I'd say they're making around $700.

So this is all a million dollars you hear.

Yes, you can make it, but that's really the top tier.

But listen, one thing we need to do is bring this back a little bit.

Let's put this in perspective.

$300,000 a year as an airline captain, narrow body airline captain is really good money.

$400,000 a year is really good money.

Put you way up there in the highest tier of wage earners.

Even if you're only making $100,000 to $150,000 a year,

that's a good living at an airline.

Of course, yes, at a major, you're going to be making $200 or more.

But these are the things I want to tell you because I think it's important that you,

if you want to share with people what you make,

send them over to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That's what I read off to you.

That $239,000 as the median salary of an air schedule transportation.

Let them look at that.

If you can live with making $239,000 as an airline pilot, this is a job for you.

If you need to make more than that, well, then maybe a different career is for you.

But there's not many careers out there that make that kind of money.

Also, if you found this information really helpful, do me a favor.

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And also if somebody's interested in those scholarships,

or you're just interested in help on how to move forward in your career,

we do both one-on-one coaching and also we have these group coaching sessions.

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If you use that coupon code, coach it forward.

Most importantly, I want you to do this for me.

I want you to continually do something every single day to move forward in your career

and in your life.

Please look at the salaries.

Make sure that this is a career that you can live with.

This is the type of salary that would be good for you.

Then I think this would be $239,000 a year of median income.

I think this would be a real good career for you.

But there's also another part to this.

We're going to get to a deep dive and how pilots get paid.

Also, what's like to be a lifestyle pilot?

Like me, I'm a lifestyle pilot.

Now, what is that?

Those are the people that work very little and get a decent paycheck.

But also get many days off in their flying career.

I usually take a one week vacation every single month.

There's not many careers out there that you can do that with.

But again, most importantly, do something today to move forward in your career.

It might be listening to a YouTube video, a podcast,

watching any type of video that's educational.

Read a book, go to our reading list and look at the wealthy pilot.

Things that will help you with your career in your life.

But do that today.

Take one step today to move forward in your career and in your life.

And I know you will get to your career at goal sooner than you think.

Take care now.

Say fly out there.