Perhaps the most important and intriguing question for
every young pilot career seeker is: how much money do pilots make? Well,
according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, pilots, co-pilots and flight
engineers are among the best paid professions. Only health care specialists and
chief executives exceed the mean
annual aircraft pilots and flight engineers income of $138,690. On the other hand, pilot salaries depend much on various
factors such as pilot experience, hiring company, type of aircraft and region
in which pilot takes his or her duties. When all these things come into
account, pilot salary per year can be as low as $20,000 and as high as $300,000
or even more.
Usually
pilots get paid hourly. Wages submitted on Glassdoor website by aviation employers
vary from $10 to $200 an hour. Companies should always guarantee a minimum
amount of flying hours to their employees. This minimum differs from airline to
airline and is something in between 50 and 80 hours per month. However, flying
an airliner composes just about half or one third of pilot’s total working
hours. Much more time is spent performing pilot duties on the ground:
simulation-based training, processing all the information about weather and
route, creating flight plan, executing pre-flight checks, making records after
flight and many other maintenance tasks. That time during positioning,
pre-flight preparation, fulfilling post-flight responsibilities along with
flight hours is called duty period and pilots normally do not get paid for it.