Foreign Pilot Salaries Vs North American
 

Why do Asian airlines pay their pilots so much more than american regional/major airlines? If there is so much demand in both markets, why do North American airlines pay a disrespectful amount of money to their pilot's? I have seen an advertisement by many Chinese regional airlines that pay their FO's & Captains above 200k a year. Why cant American regional airline pay their pilots even a quarter of that a year!?!?

Supply and demand. It's improving domestically, but the US still has lots of pilots relative to China, and very few of them are interested in putting up with the hassle of moving to and working in China.

#1 Supply and demand.

#2. Working conditions, work rules in Asia.. more than likely suck compared to the U.S. You have to pay more for people to put up with and stick around for stuff like that.

#3 Pilots here are willing to work for less in order to gain experience for the better jobs. -- And this is probably the main reason.

It's pretty easy for regional pilots to make 50K a year. 100k for a captain is easy also. Stick around for a while and the pay goes to 120-150K.

Supply and demand. You have to pay that much to get a Westerner to live in China.

As Johnny O' famously stated. "As long as I have a stack of resumes on my desk, my pay is too high." It's good business to pay your employees as little as you can get away with.

This. People are willing to hang out at the regionals (and eventually move on) rather than relocate to another culture, leaving friends and family behind.

Also work rules and job protections are non-existent overseas (except western europe & australia, but good luck getting a job there).

Also, some expat pilots have had trouble getting hired by US majors for whatever reason. I know several EK types who had to quit and come back to a US regional before they got called by US legacies...and these are naval aviators. UPS/FDX used to require US residency due to USPS contract requirements, maybe they still do?

Even if you got lucky in Europe, salaries here in USA are way higher


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Yes top-end legacy salaries are going to be much higher in the US than anywhere else.

And for some reason the rest of the bennies/quality of life are getting worse and worse over there. Thanks Ryanair :)


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I know there is no place like home, and that there will always be pilots that will fly for cheap but that doesn't mean that every single regional airline pilot job is saturated. Their is still an enormous shortage of willing pilots to take a job that make 36k GROSS a year. so why not bump up the NET starting salary to increase the demand of filled pilot seats?

I know that you're point plays an important role in deciding the salary of a pilot, but its not good business for regionals to have no one flying their aircraft either. this can be fixed with a decent salary. Im not saying that they have to pay us a minimum of 100k a year, just make it an even 60k atleast. Our training is sometimes that much and more...

What makes you think the market hasn't already adjusted. New hire pay is up 2-300% over the past 5-6 years. SkyWest which probably has one of the lowest first year compensation packages has hired 1000s of pilots over the last several years. 100s a month. Half of the 4400 pilot seniority list has less than 36 months on the property.

The only airline I hear of cancelling a ton of flights is Horizon. But I'll bet you that Alaska management knew that SkyWest could pick up some of the slack with the old CRJ700s and weren't too worried about Horizon. AK management made the financial decision that they'd rather cancel than pay more.

I think a lot of this crying about a shortage is just management just looking for a cheaper pilot.

Just wait until the economy tanks, flying gets reduced, and all of these bonuses disappear.

They're not out of applicants yet (at least not SKW), so why bother? Actually I think some regionals are paying bonuses to the tune of $60K, if you're willing to sign your life away.

Also...the whole point of regional subcontractors is to keep costs down. If you have to pay mainline wages to regional pilots, then the regionals will cease to exist. The majors want to keep the regionals around because the pilot retirement bubble won't last forever...they'll band-aid it as long as they can, ie bonuses instead of permanent payscale changes.

They pay more than the regionals for sure. They don't top the majors here though. About 300k is the top I've seen for capt pay in China. That can be exceeded here although it may take a longer time to achieve. Im still considering going overseas. Why make 60-100k here and wait for the majors to call when you can make 200k+ for 2 on 2 off.

This is why.

Before you really make that move, at least skim through the .pdf in the link below.

https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/f...lot-china.html

You get paid what the market will bear and what your union is able to negotiate.

Entry level pay at the regionals has gone up substantially in the last year or so.

Your flight training costs are of no factor in determining what you get paid.

If you can't afford to live on what you will get paid, then you should have reconsidered being a pilot with only civilian training and therefore, a large debt to repay.

Good luck actually getting that Chinese regional job paying 200K. Lots of deceptive adds out there. As far as Major airlines the US is the highest paying in the world outside of the first 3 years.

I took a look at it and also check pprune every now and then. I know it's not for everyone but for the more adventurous types it could be an option. Don't know if I could deal with the whole FO smoking in the cockpit though. He'd have to wait to smoke when we land. Unfortunately a lot of these contracts require wide body time. I can see some of the lower paid cargo guys going there to make some real coin while awaiting a call from the majors. There are also some decent contracts if typed in the e175 for regional guys. But if they're hurting that bad for pilots they need to be in the 500k+ range for American pilots to consider straying from the path to the majors to join them. By the time you get PIC time at the regionals you might as well just wait it out for a major to call.

Reading through the Duke Nukem's diatribe on China flying. It's confirming my assumptions about Chinese culture. Like it or not, stereotypes exist for a reason to the chagrine of the rainbow and unicorn types. :rolleyes:

They offer the kind of money they do because they have to and they can..simple.

Like everything else in life, it's a case of pro's vs con's. Some will take money over working conditions, others will take working conditions over $$$. Having spent the better part of a decade living in Asia and more recently, flying into SE Asia, it's simply not as easy to live there as it is US or Europe.

The biggest problem with becoming an expat pilot isn't finding work overseas and leaving........it's the coming back part.

Blows my mind why any pilot would go to Skywest.

As to the economy tanking, don't hold your breath. It is firing on all cylinders.

Even if it dipped, the retirements are going to happen.

In my opinion all regional flying will go the way of Expressjet with Delta.

Lack of pilots will cause them to violate the performance demanded in their contracts with the legacy carriers. Then the legacies will bring the flying and jets to mainline.

One thing we know about legacy management.

Monkey see, monkey do.

Things were looking great for the airline industry and being a pilot back in 98'-00'. Record numbers of new hires, great new contracts at the big carriers.. We all know how that turned out.

The economy always moves up and down. It might be a few more years, but do you think we'll never have another recession? Let's hope that isn't when they go to age 70 for retirement.

Amen to that!

65 is more than long enough. Lots of active pilots dying prior to that.