Originally Posted by
Sliceback
Skyhigh -
Your average legacy value($2.625 mil/30 yrs) works out to be $87K per year. Obviously it's wrong. Avg salary(w/o benefits) data for 2009 -
DL - 138K
AA - 138K
UA - 125K
CO - 150K
US - 111K
SW - 176K
JB - 125K
AS - 163K
AT - 104K
Your $10 million/30 yrs seems high. That would equal $333,000 per year as an average. Even if you subtract benefits(20-40%) the quoted average pay is significantly above what Captain's pay used to be. Early 1990's w/b pay was around $140-150K for n/b's and $160-170 for 767 class a/c.
50% of pilots are Captains and 50% are FO's. It is reasonable to assume that half a pilots career at a legacy will be in the right seat and the other half in the left seat. I used the average between the two to come up with an annual average wage then multiplied over 30 years. It is inaccurate to only look at top captain wages.
As pilots we are seduced by the promise of the 20 year captain salary. The reality is that those years comprise only a small portion of ones career. The rest is in much lower ranks of income. The entire career needs to be evaluated.
Ten years in college and as a flight instructor is off set by ten years captain salary at 140K. The average is often less than that of a mailman.
Skyhigh