Best Paying Jobs in the US.. Guess What made the list
05-07-2008 | 11:02 PM
#12
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/Quote
14. Airline Pilots, Copilots And Flight Engineers
Mean annual wage: $140,380
No. employed in the US: 75,810
/Unquote
Ok, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Lets do some math. An hourly wage, equaling 140K per annum, is 146 per hour, @ 80 hours per bid, 12 bids per year.
No problem for a senior captain. But this is supposed to be the Mean wage. What effect does FO pay have on the numbers? Using AA as a test case, according to APC I see there are 9129 current pilots, flying 699 aircraft. Assuming an average distribution of pilots per airframe, 50/50 CA/FO split. An 80 hour bid, 12x a year. AND ALL PILOTS AT THE TOP OF THE SCALE. AA pilots have a mean wage of $135,029.
Without crunching numbers for the other legacies, it should be safe to assume that a significant portion of their crews are not at the top of the pay scale, and have a mean wage which will be less than AA's.
There are about 39000 pilots at the legacy carriers, 13000 at the nationals, 15500 at the "major" regionals, and 7200 at the small regionals. A little less than 75000 at the scheduled 121 passenger airlines.
It should not be a stretch to assume that since about half the pilots are at lower scale carriers, the mean will be depressed even lower.
So where the @#$%^ did they come up with this number?
Theory #1 they looked at tax returns. And included all income. Including spouses' income.
Theory #2. They looked at hourly wages and multiplied by 2080. (40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year....) $70,000 sure looks like a much better candidate for the mean wage of working pilots.
14. Airline Pilots, Copilots And Flight Engineers
Mean annual wage: $140,380
No. employed in the US: 75,810
/Unquote
Ok, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Lets do some math. An hourly wage, equaling 140K per annum, is 146 per hour, @ 80 hours per bid, 12 bids per year.
No problem for a senior captain. But this is supposed to be the Mean wage. What effect does FO pay have on the numbers? Using AA as a test case, according to APC I see there are 9129 current pilots, flying 699 aircraft. Assuming an average distribution of pilots per airframe, 50/50 CA/FO split. An 80 hour bid, 12x a year. AND ALL PILOTS AT THE TOP OF THE SCALE. AA pilots have a mean wage of $135,029.
Without crunching numbers for the other legacies, it should be safe to assume that a significant portion of their crews are not at the top of the pay scale, and have a mean wage which will be less than AA's.
There are about 39000 pilots at the legacy carriers, 13000 at the nationals, 15500 at the "major" regionals, and 7200 at the small regionals. A little less than 75000 at the scheduled 121 passenger airlines.
It should not be a stretch to assume that since about half the pilots are at lower scale carriers, the mean will be depressed even lower.
So where the @#$%^ did they come up with this number?
Theory #1 they looked at tax returns. And included all income. Including spouses' income.
Theory #2. They looked at hourly wages and multiplied by 2080. (40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year....) $70,000 sure looks like a much better candidate for the mean wage of working pilots.
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