Best Paying Jobs in the US.. Guess What made the list
 

let me guess....
-Regional Airline Pilots?


*seriously where do they get their numbers from?

That was a joke right? Not only aviation, but other fields...

IM GONNA BE RICH!!! ....haha

You see?! What are all you guys b*tching about, airline pilots are millionaires! LOL

I just want you guys to know I am doing my part to get us removed from this list...

Do you mean you're emailing Forbes and telling them pilots don't make so much, or do you mean you're "allowing" pilots to be paid less (by working for lower pay) and thus resulting in "airline pilot" being removed from that list at a later date?

Forbes lost credability with me.

There are far fewer of us underpaid regional airline scum, than major airline guys who ARE making that kinda money.

I know it's hard to believe, cause everyone (or most other pilots at least) we know makes crap money (for those of us in the regional world).

Stats are stats unfortunately. I believe it.

honestly if #1 on the list is anesthiseologists and the mean pay was i believe 184,000.00 there are some really crappy Dr's out there putting people under...makes me sleep well at night....

Not every pilot is an FO at a regional.

/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.