I still dont understand? People say how bad things are in aviation right know, but how much should we make? If you were a 5 year captian at Skywest you would make $63.00 an hour. That's around $63,000 a year. With per diem you can throw in a little more. $63,000 a year( minus taxes) will be a good living if you live in SLC. That's still much higher than the average income in the US. I'm a lucky one with no debt at all; so I can live on $63,000 a year. I'm young enough, I dont know what the "good old days" were like. I'm not trying to fight. ( there's another forum for that) If stuff sucks now, I would have loved to be a pilot 20+ years ago. Sorry, it just doesn't seem that bad?