Widebody contract pay
 

From a former corporate guy gone airline now back to some part 91 opportunities, not wanting to lower the bar for the guys that exist on per diem call-outs, I'd like to learn what the range of daily contract pay rates should be for wide body international operations. The operator does not really have a contract pay structure in place, since they use mostly full-time guys. I'm PIC qualified on multiple types that they operate, although I'd be SIC with one of their full time captains on day one. I fully expect what I accept in the near term to "set the bar" of when they hand the left seat over to me. For now, PIC-qualified is one of the requirements, so my pay query couldn't be targeted to "just" captain or F/O. I bring full recency quals and meet insurance mandates, and won't cost them a dime to get situated. Feel like I might be selling myself short (and others too) by thinking $1500/day is acceptable. And $2000 seems too good to be true ... but it's really up to me to throw out a number. Just want that sentence to sound rational! Any ideas?

There is a B777 in Saudi Arabia that pays $10,000/month for something like 6 weeks on/4 weeks off.

At the same time there are BBJs that pay in the $1200-1800/day range for contract pilots.

Airliners tend to command less money because there is a huge pool of qualified pilots who can do the flying.

The leasing companies via their contract agents and various entities that do the moving of airliners seem to pay even less, $800-1000/day and under is not unheard of.

Good for you to try and set the bar higher, but I think it might be difficult to get too much. The best thing to do is use the BBJ/ACJ international contract rates. If you get $1500/day plus expenses and per diem you've done pretty well for an airliner.



Typhoonpilot

Thanks for the insight. I was using BBJ pay as a reference point, since there are so few wide body corporate gigs to set the bar. There are some BBJs in play it this operation too, so the WB money generally goes on the basis of BBJ-plus. I think it's going to sort out on it's own with no need for major advocacy from me. I see the supply and demand pressures you allude to in regard to airliners. What I'm getting into is in a bit of a vacuum from that influence, for reasons that are unclear to me.