First / Second year pay...
 

Can someone explain the breakdown of pay year 1 throughout training and then on reserve?

How much did you make on a month-to-month basis and how much did you gross year 1? Year 2? Is it possible to credit 100 hours /month year 1 and 2 with the soft pay at American?

Everybody makes 91/hour first year. 76 for short call, 73 hours pay for long call. 100 is possible depending on your equipment, you will have to work for it though. On reserve, the only way for extra money is OG or premium, which go in seniority order. Line holders have more options and freedoms.


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Thanks for the reply. I’m making decent money right now at my WO. Trying to plan for making the leap (financially) when the time comes. First year will be a significant pay cut and I’m hoping we can make it work without much disruption to the finances. I don’t mind working (especially if it’s just a year on first year pay / reserve) but I’m just trying to figure out how much pilots are realistically bringing home their 1st and 2nd years.

How many years will you have at AA when you flow? Do that math out to see if staying is better or taking the pay cut to come over will be worth it.

Oh... A lot. Leaving my regional for AA isn’t even a question. We’re just trying to plan accordingly and I’ve had a difficult time getting some real-world figures from guys on 1st/2nd year. My plan (as of right now) is for me to work 20 years. That would allow me to retire between 55-60 and not have to work until I’m 65. Hopefully anyway, we all know how life has a tendency to laugh at plans.

The worst paychecks will be the first 3 while you're still in training. AA pays a month late, looking back at what you did the previous month. Then gives you an advance. It's weird and complicated..not sure how PSA does it but it was completely different than how Envoy did.

Long story short, paycheck #1 is $3300 gross. #2 is $700, and #3 is half of $3300, so $1700 or something. Then after that you'll be getting normal paychecks. But those first 3 are killers. Plan accordingly.

Da Fuq??????

It's stupid and designed to confuse you. Easier to not pay you correctly. I found 8 hours they didn't bother to pay me in May. That is $1600.

I will say the pay comp folks are pretty good to talk to.

If you survived as a regional FO you can survive at $80k your first year.

Leaving my regional for US despite the $65,000 pay cut was the best thing I ever did. You can always make money, this job buys you quality of life and time off. Plus the pay is decent finally.

Speaking of pay questions I recently started paying attention to my HI1. 3 trios this month show less than original trip credit. As in we were re scheduled and it shows 1024 vs 10:30 or 13:46 vs 14:16. Both 2 day trips that had been modified by scheduling. If I hadn’t noticed that I wonder if they would have paid. I bet AA is making millions routinely shorting pilots.

Was hired March 2018 as a flow, hate to talk about cash but last year after it was all said and done I took A 57k cut 1st year at AA. 2nd year will also be less, but not that bad. my year two pay didn’t show up on a check till June 15, major ouch... And this month, July, was First month I actually made the same as I did at PDT. Took 99 hours to do it. I. I bid rsv for aug for a break and hopefully play OG game. but I’m prepared to see basically a zero paycheck the 15th going from 99 to 76. It’s witchcraft how the pay works.

Flowed in May from PSA, it's been a slight pay cut. We saved about 30k in advance for the first year here, so far haven't had to touch it.
For what it's worth I'm not a cheap person, looks like it'll be about 10-15 less then last year. And that's mostly based upon the old PSA rates.

This isn’t a slight against you but i never understood why people don’t like to talk about money, especially in this profession.

The pay rates are published. It isn’t a secret.

Why not stay at psa? You already AA pilot. Stay there make more money. You can flow over later.

That's because it is hard to answer. How much extra flying you can get depends on a lot of factors: lineholding vs. reserve, commuting vs. living in base, which equipment, which base, which time of year you're talking about, staffing levels, whether you can hold weekends off, how quickly your relative seniority improves, etc.

I understand what he's talking about though. Before I started I couldn't get a straight answer on how much we got paid during training. And that's a flat rate for everyone. Even from guys who had recently flowed..they wouldn't/couldn't give me any numbers. Which is why I went out of my way in this thread to give exact amounts.

Yeah you're right about training. But after that my pay has really fluctuated based on reserve/line, commuting/not, but also from month to month it varies. I'd say if someone wants to know the pay after training, take the pay scales, multiply by guarantee on the low end, and add 3-4 days of 5:15 for the high end (not that you couldn't make more).

That’s a little bit more than I’m factoring in but it’s closer than it is further away. I was thinking it’d be about a $45K pay cut year 1 and about break even year 2. I usually average 13-16 days off and I regularly credit 95-115 hours /month now. The way pay is figured at AA is a little confusing.

I’m hoping to get 737 MIA LGA or honestly wherever I can hold a line the quickest since I’m commuting and want to work to help make up the pay difference year 1.

Not to be pessimistic but if losing a couple thousand a month (after tax) is going to hurt you, you really need to consider that you will be at the very bottom of a 15,000 long list of a highly leveraged company that has the weakest margins of its peers.

Your main concern should be what do you do if you get furloughed in the first couple years. FWIW I had roughly three years living expenses in cash waiting for me when I left my regional and that didn't include my wife continuing to work. I wanted worst case covered.

If you can make that work, you can find a way to make first and second year work which is a best case scenario.

Save your money now and if you don't need it, you've got it and can invest it when you feel you can start to take more risk. That is what I did at about the 2.5 year mark and it worked extremely well for me.

Go with this. First year pay is gonna hurt but if you budget and think like an FO at a regional you’ll do fine.

For me, I made about 1,300 - 1,500 less a month my first year at AA compared to my last year at envoy. If money is going to be tight for you, I would stay at a base where you can hold a line the fastest. That way you have lots of options in trying to get your hours up.

If I get furloughed within the first few years then we’ll have bigger fish to fry regardless. Personally I don’t want 2-3 years of expenses in a vessel of some sort that isn’t really earning me anything. We’re relatively young and can afford to be aggressive with our investments (and we have been) and it has paid off very well.

We have money in savings and have been preparing but I have fixed monthly expenses that come with caring for a parent with less than perfect health among other things. That doesn’t change whether I make $10K /month or $7K. If I have to move money around to make it all work I will. But I’d rather not get too deep into our emergency fund if I don’t have to. We have several properties and you may be surprised to know that $10-$15K can be gone very quick when things break on multiple properties in a month. Ask me how I know (a couple years in a row :eek:).

So anyway, I’m over a year away from the flow and things may change. But being furloughed isn’t a primary concern of mine with the retirements looming. Even when the economy and the housing markets correct I don’t anticipate it impacting things to the point where furloughs will be a real thing. I do think more consolidation is on the way though.

Anyway... I appreciate all the input from everyone. Just trying to figure out how to make it all work that first year primarily. What bases/aircraft have the shortest time on reserve? Is it realistic to hope to hold a line in MIA, LGA, or PHL the first year?

Very realistic, as in 100% certain. You might find that you value certain days off and elect to bid reserve though to facilitate that.

Tough to do year 1. Perhaps easier year 2 depending on domicile and aircraft. Need a bit of seniority horsepower to be able to play the IMAX game and consistently credit 100 hours month after month.

FYI, consistently crediting 100 hrs a month is NOT playing the IMAX game.... That's setting yourself up for failure.

What do you mean? I figured with some of the soft pay and work rules at AA it wouldn’t be unrealistic to credit 90+ hours /month while only blocking 80-85. I wouldn’t work myself to the bone every month but I typically like to work hard for a few months then take one or two off with a light schedule if possible. I will be commuting after all so it will be tough to do that every month, even with some seniority in base/seat.

The 73 and bus have a lot of high block time trips. Their trips are usually hard time, maybe just an hour or 2 of soft time from what I’ve seen. Nice thing is there are some 17-18 hour 3 days, but you fly a lot.

The 190 typically has at least 3 or 4 hours of soft time on a 4 day if not more.

I cant speak for other places but I did 1 day of reserve in LGA last year. Lots of guys doing 1-2 months then getting lines. Crappy 90hr all weekend lines but with you a line you can then start trip trading and improving it.

FYI the junior trips typically have red eyes imbedded in them and they are not like your typical RJ flying. ACD has helped at least you don't have to work five days a week for 22 hours pay doing back to back red eyes anymore but they will kill your spirit to go to work.

I get that it's fashionable to be pessimistic as an airline pilot, but for a pilot at a AA WO carrier who's young there really is no choice but flow. Any significant hit that would cause a furlough at Mainline is going to roll downhill and affect the WO carriers significantly, and these are carriers that lack any CBAs with other mainline carriers to insulate their pilot groups.

Additionally, the first half of the 2020s is the major retirement wave at AA, with roughly one third of the seniority list hitting mandatory retirement in that period. The earlier one can get hired in that wave, the better you'll fare, because even if the worst were to happen, the airline could very easily shrink significantly while not furloughing. Yes, seniority wherever one was stuck would suck, but longevity, and therefore pay rates, would obviously increase.

Any word on how soon CLT may start seeing some decent movement? Regardless of whether or not it may see a 73 base there at some point down the line? I know there are supposed to be a lot of CLT guys retiring sooner than later.

Decent movement? I’m actually moving down the list in Oct... been in CLT for years and my % seniority has barely changed. CLT has the most retirements, but has a ton of people bidding in. Also, the company is shrinking the number of pilots there for some odd reason.

I’d say it would probably be a couple more years to see ‘decent’ movement, unless a 737 base is announced.

The company has figured out they can use Out of Base Make Up to staff the flying in CLT. Lots of people live here, are way more senior in other bases, drop those trips, then grab CLT trips before they make it to premium.

Did I understand that correctly, you’re monthly guarantee for first year is 91 hrs regardless of sc, lc, or lineholder?

No it’s 91 dollars per hour. 76 hours for short call, 73 for long and line values vary every month. If you can hold a line it’s pretty easy to do 82-85.

$91 per hour. Hourly guarantee differs depending on schedule.

From what I gather LGA is the fastest time to a line out of training. Probably where I will bid if nothing else changes.

When is your class date?

There’s more to it than that. If you bid the bus, lga only has domestic, so you can’t pick up out of base intl (phl/Clt/dca/Mia).




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And I believe most NY trips are uncommutable on one end.

But at least you will be working 17 days and 90hrs with an all weekend schedule to make up for it. Pre-ACD it was 20 days so I guess we are making progress