Top earning potential at the regionals.
 

Obviously the bigger money is at the major carriers.

Where do you folks see top end being at the regionals? Is 200k a possibility in the future? What are some of your top earners hitting now? I'm a 8yr CA and should be around 135k including per diem excluding co 401k match. I hope to move on soon but just wondering how much pay will improve in the years to come. At what point does mainline pull more flying in versus using the regional lift?

As a check airmen, yes, I believe $200K is possible. Other than that, I think we may be near the top end of pay without mainline taking flying back or waiting for inflation to bring pay up that high.


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I don’t think so. A few outliers may hit the 200k mark at the regional level, but that would be the top .01%. 12+ year check airmnen/management types. It won’t be the norm.

Regionals generally don’t like people staying too long messes up the economics of system.

All they need is a steady stream of bodies in the door to replace those leaving.

Once you’re there, the seniority system is deferent enough to keep people from jumping ship once they have a few years sunk into a company. Unless,it’s got better earning potential.

That said 100-130k is still a very nice living.

Not so "nice" in the highest cost domiciles...

You should be able to live comfortably off of that anywhere besides NYC or Cali.

Plenty of people living around those areas on much less salary. I get it, 100k isn’t what it used to be, but it’s still more than most.

This times 10.

100k doesn't stretch far in many bases including LAX, SFO, PDX, SEA, SAN, PSP, LGA, etc. when you have a family of 6 you're trying to sustain(and in those areas many salaries are higher, or at just slightly lower incomes qualify for government subsidies and other low income benefits).

You can make 240k selling your pilots down river as an ASA MEC chairman.

Maybe you shouldn’t try to raise a family of six in one of those areas on a regional salary then?

Or maybe a professional pilots captain salary should be enough to allow them to live in any domicile, especially when they've been forced to move several times from more affordable bases that were closed?

No joke. My wife and I waited ten years, including finishing my career switch, to just have one.

We felt like it would be irresponsible to bring a human being into this world without a good means of supporting them (including financially).

Yeah, about that... I didn't plan on having to take care of both my parents when they became very ill, guess I should just tell them to hit the bricks?

$100K-$130K is plausible after 10+ years. More for LCA.

A very few sim instructors make $300k+. But that's hard work, only possible because 117 doesn't apply in the sim...

But even so there's always the risk of a COMAIR scenario in your mid-50's, with a couple kids in college...

*Should*, yes.

*Will*, not necessarily.

The pay at the regionals serving NYC and other terrible bases will probably reach $200K in the next few years.

No one said that, but that would be taxing on pretty much everybody. Best of luck.

That seems to be what most intelligent people do but it’s the less intelligent people who are havin g more kids than they can afford.

All of my children are line items

2-3 years at some regionals now.

Might have to.

38,000 pilots retire in the next 14 years. Regionals will either pay more or fail.... period

Have you ever seen the film Idiocracy?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwZ0ZUy7P3E

I've got a couple friends at endeavor that are clocking in 100k at year 3 as Captain sitting reserve.

Someone at ten years from now at Endeavor, if they were unable to move on, could probably be pulling in 140k without much effort at all and have a great schedule.

That's a pretty comfortable amount. I just wouldn't personally bank on any regional being stable enough to be around in ten years. Look how much has changed in the last five.

I haven’t, but that link you posted goes a long with what I said.

Put that in perspective. 38,000 pilots is TWICE the number of pilots at all the regionals, combine.

“May you live in interesting times.” - Attributed to a Chinese Proverb

Exactly, numbers of this scale have never left the airlines in such a short timespan. In the next 10 years it’s 28,000 so I agree, interesting times ahead. I don’t think a 25 year old could be a lifer at a regional if they wanted to, because the chances of their regional not being greatly impacted by the next decade are very low

Yes certain markets are more expensive to live in than others. That's not what I was concerned with neither was whether or not one should be able to budget on a six figure income. Everyone has a different story.

If one averaged 100 credit hours a month they would need about $166 per hour to crack 200k. I'm not sure if we will see those kind of rates. Maybe something close to that and retention bonuses would put folks close to the 200 mark. I guess we will find out what the market forces in a few years.

It’s already being done by sim instructors and Check Airmen at YX. Apparently a few who eat sleep and breathe work are cracking $300K as Check Airmen.


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To me 38,000 is not a huge number, but when you look at it from a standpoint of spots that need to be filled (and not enough bodies to fill them), that is crazy!!

$120 hour x 1.15 instructor over-ride x 12 hours/day sim x 20 days/month x 12 months x 1.07 401k = $425k

I personally know folks who are doing this. Lot of work. I passed on it because I always wanted to be an airline pilot, not a sim instructor.

Holy crap! That is way different than the instructor package that we have. Good for them.

Those union slime balls. One of the union guys at Republic several years ago eventually got a very high six-figure job in management. It was his goal the entire time.

That's a very common perk for union leadership, and not limited to the regionals.

IMO each union should have a no-compete clause for top-three officials... can't work for company in any capacity other than line pilot for ten years after leaving a union position. Maybe an exception for loss of medical, but even that's a slippery slope since it's not hard to lose your medical if you want to.

Absolutely
 

Agree wholeheartedly

135K for a 8 yr CA will not put regional cheap lift in jeapordy. 2nd yr FO at any decent mainline will beat that plus have better 401k, profit sharing and Health Insurance.

I’m still a year away from applying at the regionals so bare with me and my ignorance. I’ve looked at all regionals pay scale. I’m not seeing how $200k is possible even in 20 years as captain. One gentleman stated he’s making $135k a year as a 8 year captain? How is this even possible when the best I’ve found is $93k a year as 8 year captain?

Are you just multiplying the min guarantee by the hourly rate? At many airlines it’s easy to credit 100+ hours a month of pay. Last month I hit 145.

I think $200K would be a stretch for a regular line pilot (non-instructor), but possible with a lot of work.

You're limited to 1000 hours block per year, but that's actual taxi/flight time. Many trips have additional "soft" credit built in for duty rigs, deadhead etc. You get paid for those hours but they don't count against your 1000 hour limit. So a trip could block 24, but pay 30+

Also you can trade trips around. If the company has open time trips which are going to be hard to cover with reserves, they'll offer x1.5 time, double or even possibly triple time. If you can work one or more of those each month, you can be well on your way to $200.

You can also include 401k match if you like, another 3-7%.

But again, it's going to be a lot of work, both actual work plus spending time gaming the scheduling system (that can be as addicting as FB... )

There's more to regional economics than just hourly rate but you can do a rough comparison by dividing hourly crew cost (CA+FO) by number of seats on the plane. Since all jets fly about the same speed, this will show you why 50 seat crew economics are really not that good.

A couple things to bear in mind....

Few regional crews are at the top of their scale. That's going to be more common at mainline, so that's in favor of current regional economics.

FA's don't really count much, since more seats = more FA's and there's not a vast disparity between regional and major FA pay.

There are other factors with regionals, including MX and ground personnel which also help regional economics.