How Much is a Pilot Salary Worth?
How much does a pilot earn, what really is a Pilot Salary worth today? This is such a commonly asked question from a broad cross section of people. From those looking at becoming a pilot for their chosen career right through to experienced airline Captains wondering what other pilots are getting paid flying for other airlines. The purpose of this website is to bring you informative and up to date articles, news, videos and other information to keep you abreast of what is happening in the airline and aviation industry.
While it is possible to retrieve actual data of what pilots are earning for a particular airline from online and other sources. It is important to note that while this may satisfy a pilot looking at changing jobs this will not help anyone aspiring to become a pilot unless they are determined to fly for that particular airline. The reason being that in todays airline environment their is a huge disparity in pilot salaries from the very low to the very high.
With such diversity in airline business models it is impossible to calculate an average pilot salary for a commercial airline pilot. Even if we were to look solely at the larger international and domestic carriers you will find a significant disparity for pilots of similar experience flying a similar aircraft type. I put this down to 3 major factors.
- The introduction of low cost carriers
- The rapid expansion of airlines in Asia and the Middle East
- High fuel prices
Low Cost Airlines
Whether you love them or hate them low cost airlines are probably here to stay. By offering much lower ticket prices they have opened up air travel to a demographic who previously could not afford to fly. As a general rule pilots of a budget carrier airline will be paid substantially lower salaries, receive lesser working conditions and will work much harder than their counterparts flying for the traditional major airlines. To understand why this occurs and how they are able to offer such low price tickets I will use a comparison. Singapore Airlines and Malaysian budget carrier Air Asia fly roughly the same amount of routes.Yet Air Asia employs approximately one quarter of the number of employees than Singapore Airlines, substantially slashing it’s operating costs. On top of this they pay their employees a reduced salary.
According to data from pilotjobsnetwork.com the top Captain base salary for Air Asia is equivalent to approximately $8500 USD per month while the top pilot salary for a Singapore Airlines Captain is around $16,500 per month (source ask Captain Lim)
Contract Pilots
Now let’s take a look at the other end of the spectrum. Many Airlines in Asia and the middle east are experiencing such rapid growth that they are unable to procure sufficient pilots to crew their aircraft. Almost all of theses carriers have exhausted the supply of local pilots and are paying increased pilot salaries to attract expatriate crew members as contract pilots. The chairman of Spring Airlines in China was recently quoted saying that we are unable to commence flying new routes as we do not have enough pilots to fly our aircraft. Being in such demand the only way to attract or poach pilots from other airlines is to increase the salaries and conditions.
High operating costs such as fuel will force airlines to closely watch their expenditure which is why budget carriers will continue to strive in today’s economic climate. What I do find interesting is how these airlines will cope if the predictions being made by the worlds two largest aircraft manufactures comes to fruition. Both Boeing and Airbus believe there will be a requirement for around 450,000 new pilots worldwide over the next 18 years, and a pilot shortage is believed to be inevitable.
It is our mission here at Pilot Salary to keep you informed about this sometimes controversial aviation and airline industry. We hope you enjoy our articles, news and video’s and welcome you to leave any comments.
