Just curious what management pilots are paid at the majors. Do positions like base chief or regional chief pilot come with a considerable compensation bump compared to a regular line pilot? What kind of schedules do they typically fly?

 

Most management pilots don't get a huge bump, but it's likely a bit more than a typical line CA. For a lot of them there's an appeal to not flying much and going home most nights.

Flying depends. At a small regional base I've seen the BCP mostly fly the line with a few scheduled office days (half days actually).

At a large base, it will be full-time office hours (typically with one or more part-time assistant CP's), but you'll schedule your own flying as needed to stay current. That's the theory. The reality is that the CP often ends up being the "reserve of last resort" when they run out of reserves and would otherwise cancel. If you're lucky, that will happen on your scheduled office days but you might also get stuck with crap trips they can't cover on weekends and holidays. Saving grace might that if you just did five days in the office, you're not legal to fly a multi-day trip because office time counts as duty.

This can all vary by company of course.

For the big money, system CP and especially VP Flights Ops (121 Director of Ops) are probably getting into the traditional VP compensation realm (plus you still have the job security of returning to the line). Some lower level CP's are bucking for the top jobs and associated money.

 

Tech pilot at my major has a base pay of $450k if my memory serves me.