"Average 1st year pay will be aprox 1700/month for a 1st year regional at 75 hours at $22.75/ hour. Dont expect more than 75.

So I assume you only make 1100 a month as an instructor (50% increase statement), and being that you work 7 days a week, you make on average $35 a day as an instructor.

Care to rethink your opinion on the extra 50% you will make at a regional?

I am not trying to be mean, but don't be melodramatic. There is nothing more annoying, as a regional pilot, is reading about a CFI who cant wait to fly an RJ so he can make big money, while the regional pilot is barely getting by.

Some might think that the reason why the regional pilot suffers financially is because the CFI wants to fly the RJ to make the "big bucks."




Don't be so quick to judge me. I'm not dying to make "the big bucks" at a regional, I know that won't happen for several years, I don't have SJS, if I did, I would be furloughed from one of the less favorite regionals right now. I opted to finish school, and in doing so I missed the last hiring wave. There is nothing more annoying than when guys at the airlines assume every CFI and up-and-coming pilot out there is absolutely dying to get hired by the first airline they come across just to "fly a jet, because its soooo cool." Don't blame us for a problem that started long before we touched the controls of an airplane.

I know you aren't trying to be mean, I didn't take it that way at all. I don't mean to come off as melodramatic, so please don't think that is the way I am.

As far as pay goes, $35 would be a good day for me. Our pay is less than $15/hr and with things being so slow, I rarely make $35/day. I have not made more than $900 in a month this year so perhaps I should have said closer to a 90-100% pay increase, using the $1700/mo figure? To answer your question, no, I don't wish to rethink my 50% because in most cases that is about accurate given that if/when the hiring resumes, things will likely be better and the airlines will have more block hours to be flown, and hopefully more hours per month for the pilots thus one can make more than minimum guarantee each month. As far as financial planning goes it would be irresponsible to plan for more than the minimum but I would be surprised if an airline actively hired when its pilots were having trouble making the monthly minimum. I may be wrong, as this industry is so bass-ackwards that it may have happened in the past.

At any rate, what do I know? I'm but a lowly CFI.