At first glance a 5000 dollar bonus sounds pretty tempting. After thinking about it, I wondered why would a couple of airlines need to offer a 5000 dollar bonus to get pilots to work there when others don’t? Is 5000 dollars enough to outweigh the hidden cost of working at these airlines?
I ran some preliminary numbers at Republic, and Eagle who offer bonus's, vs ExpressJet and Skywest who do not. I have a more detailed breakdown at
Is A 5000($) bonus worth it?
Assuming 5 year upgrades at all of these airlines these were the following accumulated compensation totals after the first 5 years applying a 3% year over year value of money.
After 5 years:
Republic (with bonus) : 187,617$
American Eagle (with bonus): 198,826$
ExpressJet (no bonus): 190,903$
SkyWest (no bonus): 194,216$
Contingent (get furloughed and go to another carrier): 171,020$.
I was surprised that even with the bonus, the wage compensation of some of the carriers was still less than carriers without it. This obviously does not including retirement, work rules, or risk associated with these specific carriers. Including these other factors I began wondering what level of bonus would make those risks at these "bonus" carriers justifiable from a financial standpoint.