Posts
Dear Friends,
Here I would like to bring your notice abouth pilot salary.
Among the jobs little boys dream of — policeman, fireman, bulldozer driver — airline pilot long held the added virtue of satisfying grown-up dreams: pay that reached $300,000 a year, 20 days a month off work, the prestige of one day commanding a $200 million airplane, and a lush retirement at 60.
Jason Captain, in Fort Worth with his son Riley, 3, left the Navy and is training to be an airline pilot.
Jason Captain, in Fort Worth with his son Riley, 3, left the Navy and is training to be an airline pilot.
Samantha Negley gave up flying to work as a copywriter. But the airline industry’s financial collapse this decade did away with much of that, leaving thousands of young men — and increasingly women — chasing a dream toward a disappointing reality.
“My wife thinks I’m nuts,” said Jason Captain, 32, of Fort Worth who left the Navy last November, walking away from $75,000-a-year lieutenant’s pay for flying military brass in and out of Guantánamo Bay.
He started training last month to fly a 76-seat regional jet for a Northwest Airlines subsidiary and expects to make about $21,000 his first year. Like most airline pilots, Mr. Captain had his heart set on flying “ever since I was a little kid,” he said. “I can’t see myself in an office.”
In recent years, he and his wife, June, were in the odd position of saving part of his military pay so they and their two sons could afford to have him work in the private sector. It could take him a decade to work his way back up to his former income.
He hopes, of course, to jump ultimately to the big jets at Northwest Airlines, where the most senior pilots can still make more than $150,000 a year, but there is no guarantee he will get there.
And, with the airline industry ready to go into another swoon because of high fuel prices, Mr. Captain and other junior pilots could find themselves furloughed.
“You’re much better off going into plumbing, from a purely financial perspective,” said Ed Grogan, a financial planner in Gig Harbor, Wash., who has pilots among his clients.
The military is turning out fewer pilots, so aspiring aviators increasingly attend private flight schools, emerging with as much as $150,000 in student debt. Student loan payments can exceed $1,000 a month.
After Sept. 11, 2001, the biggest domestic airlines reduced their fleets by hundreds of planes, so they needed fewer pilots. And through actual and threatened bankruptcies, airlines managed to cut pilot pay by 30 percent or more. Many pilots lost big parts of their pensions. Work hours increased.
Certainly, top pay of $200,000 a year at the biggest airlines, down from $300,000, is still a nice living.
But cuts at big airlines were just the beginning of the decline in pilot careers. Regional airlines, which pay far less than hub-and-spoke carriers even after the pay cuts, expanded to handle much of the flying that bigger airlines had abandoned. Many new pilot jobs are like the one Mr. Captain is taking, with a rock-bottom starting wage that creeps slowly toward $100,000 a year.
Poor pay and fewer big-airline jobs to move up to have led to fewer applicants, creating a pilot shortage that is most acute overseas but is also felt here.
Regional airlines have had to reduce hiring standards drastically. Earlier this decade, they could insist on a candidate’s having at least 1,500 hours of total flight time before an interview. Today, that minimum is 500 hours at many regional carriers. The decline is contributing to safety concerns among some experts.
The seniority system — a new pilot starts at the bottom at most airlines, earning the lowest pay and getting the worst shifts — limits job-hopping. So choosing the right employer the first time around is crucial. Moving from first officer, the right seat, to captain, the left seat, brings the biggest leap in pay and status.
Thus, Mr. Captain, who looks forward to being called Captain Captain, turned down a job at American Eagle Airlines, the regional division of American Airlines. It initially paid better, but the wait to upgrade to captain is six and a half years. At the Northwest regional carrier, Compass, which is growing, he could make captain in as little as one year.
But things change. Network carriers like United Airlines and Delta Air Lines hire regional carriers, which are separate companies, to fly feeder routes from smaller cities into hub airports. But the big airlines renegotiate contracts every few years, often switching carriers to reduce costs. That means today’s fast-growing regional airline could be laying off pilots tomorrow.
“It’s a nightmare,” said Kit Darby, who retired a year ago as a United pilot and runs a pilot job fair business, Air Inc.
“My wife thinks I’m nuts,” said Jason Captain, 32, of Fort Worth who left the Navy last November, walking away from $75,000-a-year lieutenant’s pay for flying military brass in and out of Guantánamo Bay.
He started training last month to fly a 76-seat regional jet for a Northwest Airlines subsidiary and expects to make about $21,000 his first year. Like most airline pilots, Mr. Captain had his heart set on flying “ever since I was a little kid,” he said. “I can’t see myself in an office.”
In recent years, he and his wife, June, were in the odd position of saving part of his military pay so they and their two sons could afford to have him work in the private sector. It could take him a decade to work his way back up to his former income.
He hopes, of course, to jump ultimately to the big jets at Northwest Airlines, where the most senior pilots can still make more than $150,000 a year, but there is no guarantee he will get there.
And, with the airline industry ready to go into another swoon because of high fuel prices, Mr. Captain and other junior pilots could find themselves furloughed.
“You’re much better off going into plumbing, from a purely financial perspective,” said Ed Grogan, a financial planner in Gig Harbor, Wash., who has pilots among his clients.
The military is turning out fewer pilots, so aspiring aviators increasingly attend private flight schools, emerging with as much as $150,000 in student debt. Student loan payments can exceed $1,000 a month.
After Sept. 11, 2001, the biggest domestic airlines reduced their fleets by hundreds of planes, so they needed fewer pilots. And through actual and threatened bankruptcies, airlines managed to cut pilot pay by 30 percent or more. Many pilots lost big parts of their pensions. Work hours increased.
Certainly, top pay of $200,000 a year at the biggest airlines, down from $300,000, is still a nice living.
But cuts at big airlines were just the beginning of the decline in pilot careers. Regional airlines, which pay far less than hub-and-spoke carriers even after the pay cuts, expanded to handle much of the flying that bigger airlines had abandoned. Many new pilot jobs are like the one Mr. Captain is taking, with a rock-bottom starting wage that creeps slowly toward $100,000 a year.
Poor pay and fewer big-airline jobs to move up to have led to fewer applicants, creating a pilot shortage that is most acute overseas but is also felt here.
Regional airlines have had to reduce hiring standards drastically. Earlier this decade, they could insist on a candidate’s having at least 1,500 hours of total flight time before an interview. Today, that minimum is 500 hours at many regional carriers. The decline is contributing to safety concerns among some experts.
The seniority system — a new pilot starts at the bottom at most airlines, earning the lowest pay and getting the worst shifts — limits job-hopping. So choosing the right employer the first time around is crucial. Moving from first officer, the right seat, to captain, the left seat, brings the biggest leap in pay and status.
Thus, Mr. Captain, who looks forward to being called Captain Captain, turned down a job at American Eagle Airlines, the regional division of American Airlines. It initially paid better, but the wait to upgrade to captain is six and a half years. At the Northwest regional carrier, Compass, which is growing, he could make captain in as little as one year.
But things change. Network carriers like United Airlines and Delta Air Lines hire regional carriers, which are separate companies, to fly feeder routes from smaller cities into hub airports. But the big airlines renegotiate contracts every few years, often switching carriers to reduce costs. That means today’s fast-growing regional airline could be laying off pilots tomorrow.
“It’s a nightmare,” said Kit Darby, who retired a year ago as a United pilot and runs a pilot job fair business, Air Inc.
Please post comments with regard to the same.
Yours Sincerely,
Gowdilyan.M
1 comment:
I think the Aviation is growing industry and it cannot happen everywhere. However, there are few organizations in need of increasing their profit they started reducing or cutting down employees salary.
Post a Comment