Instructors Pay

[Tiger_ Moth]

I would like to be an instructor very much but I always hear people saying instructors are poorly paid. I dont mind this as long as I could live on it but how much are we talking about here for a newly qualified instructor? £10,000 a year? Could I live on it? Also , how much flying do you actually get to do each day?

[Say again s l o w l y]

Live on it??!! Sorry don't think so, 10K a year is a pretty good wage as an instructor.
Most people get paid per flying hour, some with a retainer aswell, from about £10 a day. Believe me during the winter you usually don't even make your own petrol costs. :eek:

The hours are obviously the most important thing, but it doesn't make it any easier to swallow.
I've generally managed to average in the summer about 5-6 hours a day. it is pushing it a bit tho' if you try and do proper briefs and de-briefs for every flight.

Instructing is great fun and a fantastic way to learn to fly properly, but after 6-7 months I found it a little waring sometimes.

[ 08 September 2001: Message edited by: Say again s l o w l y ]

[FI]

I make about £9000 p.a. It is a joke, how can I live on that? As for the hours, thanks, over 1500 hours doesn't get me an interview with the airlines.

I read and smile at the folk on the wannabe forum, they talk about getting a jet job with their 200 hrs, it dosn'e happen to anyone I konw. And, before people start I am a CAP 509 grad from Oxford, first time passes all round and I am not a looney. Yes, I send out CVs and phone but no luck yet.

Rant over, maybe too much home made cider drunk tonight!

[Tiger_ Moth]

Do you mean you are left with £9000 after tax etc or is that before tax is taken away?
I would make more money if I did my weekend job full time but I wouldnt be flying. 5 hours a day in the summer!!!!! Thats great! I wouldnt mind how low I got paid if I got paid to fly...as long as I could live on it.
Couldnt I live on that much? If I couldnt live on that much then how do you? I still think it would be a great job.
Wouldnt you get more if you were a CFI with lots of expierience? How high could wages go? £20,000?
Would it be REALLY hard for a 200 hour FI to get a job? If so then how would I get a job if I was paying for it myself? Would I have to just get more hours because I wouldnt be able to afford to do that. How did you get to be instructors?

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

I got about £9k p.a. in PPL flying school days. Summer is take home about £1,000 a month but the winter gets real 'lean'.

Commercial instruction will generall break £20k to start off with.

Good luck,

WWW

ps I now look back on the two years of instructing I did (1999/2000) as being an extrememly fun time when the flying was rewarding and the friends I made superb. Now flying a Boeing things are different, not worse but not amazingly better - the money of course is on a different planet. Safe flying.

[ 10 September 2001: Message edited by: Wee Weasley Welshman ]

[Kermit 180]

To say it gets real lean in winter is an understatement. The weather can really put a damper on things, especially when you get paid by the flying hour.

Kerms

[Token Bird]

So how do you guys survive then? Do you supplement it in some way? (table-dancing perhaps?)

[Charlie Foxtrot India]

"I wouldnt mind how low I got paid if I got paid to fly...as long as I could live on it."

It is this attitude that keeps the wages of all instructors down, often below the poverty line.

[eyeinthesky]

C.F.I.: Precisely. Until instructors start standing up for their rights then this situation will continue. Sadly, the perception is that there are loads of people like Tiger Moth who will work for next to nothing so long as they can fly, and the schools know that. The problem is a vicious circle, where the only winners are the employers, who charge the punters a premium of anything up to £30 an hour for instruction, but only pay the instructors £8-£10 of that BEFORE tax.

You guys need, nationally, to stop being taken for a ride in the hope of getting enough hours to fly for an airline and ensure that the payment is fair. The recent debate about a flying school in Scotland and the National Minimum Wage clouded the water somewhat, but in my opinion you should be guaranteed AT least the minimum wage. I'm sure many people would be happy with, say, the NMW and then some sliding scale of (diminishing) remuneration per hour once you got above a certain level to protect schools from paying you loads when the weather is nice and then taking a hit when it's crap and they're paying you the NMW anyway. Then at least you can be sure you'll be able to pay the rent every month. But the NMW for the job you're doing is laughable. Bar staff get paid more than you, and they haven't shelled out many thousands of pounds and passed a dozen exams to be allowed to do the job.

Just in case you think it's all hot air, I did try stirring things up a bit at the school where I instruct part time, but regret that the management of it efficiently stifled any hope of change and the full-time guys were placed in fear of their jobs. I couldn't do it alone, and I do have the luxury of another job which pays the mortgage.

Working for next to nothing in the hope of big rewards later is a fools' track. It's like agreeing to sweep Silverstone by hand because you might one day get to drive a F1 car.

Probably time to get off the hobby horse now. UP THE WORKERS!! :D :p

[Tiger_ Moth]

So eyeinthesky, you think that I should not accept this but also say that standing up for a decent wage will not work. What is the moral of your story? If I went up to a school and said bravely :"I shall not work for you, you do not pay enough" they would say very well sir and then I would go away and work in a box factory or something and wouldnt get to fly. I would not actually like to instruct commercially, ppl instructing would be much more fun, if I didnt starve.
So, what are the chances of a school taking on a 200hr FI to instruct PPLs?
And by the way, what do you do when the weathers bad? Do you have to turn up? If you do turn up and theres no flying do you just sit around and do whatever you want? What are the holidays like?
How did you become instructors? Did you get a normal job, save up then start training? Thats my plan and I think it will take ages depending on how good my job is, minimum 5 years.
£9000 a year? Do you have to find an additional form of work or can you manage on that?

[FI]

What do I do to make ends meet? Anything I can, drive vans, work in bars and anything you can think of!

I want to stop instructing as soon as I can. I would love air taxi or airline flying, anthing that takes me into the blue sky in the winter and out of the ice.

Nearly winter....lean times ahead.

[Rojop]

I was an instructor in Vancouver, British Columbia until three years ago. After reading all of the replies, I'm conviced it's the same everywhere. Instructors are poorly paid.

You work harder than you'll ever work in your whole career, and you get paid the very least. You must pay your dues in this industry.

When I got my instructing job, I thought I was the luckiest son of a .... in the world. I got paid $20 CDN per hour of instruction, and logged eighty hours a month(except Dec, Jan, Feb) But after 2 years I was exhausted and ready to move on.

I have known a couple of "200-hour wonders" who landed multi jobs. Usually they knew someone, or they became best friends with the Chief Pilot of some company. (It was hard on me when I got "bypassed" by my own students!!)

I do recommend instructing, though. Some captains don't think very highly of your FI time, but I think it is more valuable than any other type. You learn a great deal, develop excellent habits, and build lots of hours in a short period of time.

[BEagle]

Do schools employ 200 hr FIs to instruct at PPL level? Yes, they sometimes do. I recently took on an enthusiastic young man who had only recently passed his FI(R) and he's teaching under supervision (and learning about the practical problems of teaching real students!). I think he got about 40 hours in his first week and a half!
So why did I accept his offer to instruct:

1. He was recommended as an honest and keen chap by someone I trust.

2. He turned up for our interview in good time, smartly but not ostentatiously dressed, was polite and articulate.

3. He handed over a well-written career summary and explained why he wanted to instruct and what his future aspirations were.

4. He did an assessment trip (for free) with another experienced FI whose judgement I also respect and that went fine.

So I took him on. I also explained:

1. We would pay the greater of the cost of him coming to work or earnings from his daily instructional work so that he would never be out of pocket if he turned up only to find that all his students had cancelled.

2. He could choose when he wanted to come to work and just has to let the secretary know - but if the weather looked dog it would be a good idea to check first whether it was likely to be a wasted journey.

3. We will pay him £250 to meet his FI revalidation requirements - his choice of test or seminar. If he chooses to instruct elsewhere as well, we will pay him the appropriate fraction of £250.

4. He can walk away whenever a better offer comes along without any ill-feeling. He'll also get an honest reference for another employer if he wants.

5. We'll get his FI(R) restriction lifted as soon as we can.

6. He can have his IMC renewal 'on the house'.

So he's not going to become a millionaire overnight, but he's helping us to keep our costs down so that we get some students to train in the first place! He accepts that he is effectively doing an apprenticeship - and is thoroughly enjoying it!

[ 11 September 2001: Message edited by: BEagle ]

[Rob 747]

My local school pays 14.oo per hour!.

Sounds good to me!
Its more than i am on sat at this computer now!

Rob- The Gonnabe Flying Instructor

[eyeinthesky]

BEagle: Full Marks to you! The well reasoned and professional approach you have obviously taken in this instance is just what is sadly lacking in many schools with which I have had the misfortune to deal. You have a positive attitude to looking after the individual's welfare while ensuring neither of you is taken for a ride. The difference is marked from one school I know well. In this case, the instructors are expected to show up whatever the weather and sit around all day if necessary on a very small retainer, and the MD openly describes his instructors as 'Only in it for themselves' and 'What's the point in paying them more because they're only going to leave for an airline anyway.' In addition, he takes on almost any Tom, Dick or Harry who walks through the door with a half-decent CV because he is worried his instructors will leave at short notice. This spreads the sometimes thin flying even further. Of course it becomes self-fulfilling as the guys and girls can't wait to get out, and are posting CVs off like there's no tomorrow.

If only your attitude were more widely shown, BEagle, then perhaps we might start getting a flying industry which rewards the investment we put into it.

Rob747: Yes, £14 an hour sounds good, but is it as siumple as it looks? What do you get on the bad weather days? Do you have to reach target hours (sometimes 40 hrs+) on a basic retainer before you get the hourly rate? I would suggest that if you drive a reasonable distance to work, are able to fly maybe one half-hour trial lesson and then go home again then £7 for your day's work is a little mean.

[cessnababe]

Instructing is not just about getting hours and perhaps making a little money on the side! The punter deserves more than that! Instructors will only deserve to be paid the proper rate for the job when they take the responsibility for delivering the goods! I have been instructing for 9 years out of choice as it is the job I want to do. it is far more demanding and much more about flying than ever flying an Airliner is. How many airline pilots carry out 56 landings in a day?
I now train flying instructors and that is a real job. Fortunately it now pays more than the £10 per hour of PPL instructing,but nowhere near what a fisrt officer on a turboprop caould get. I do it because I believe I am good at it and the student benefits from the hard work that I put in.
What really gets up my nose is all those airline pilots who got those hours so they could go to the airline and earn pots of money and now have the audacity to come back to flying instructing on their days off and take away the best bits such as examining. If they have got a good job then they should leave the instructing and examining to those of us who are trying to make a living! They cannot have their cake and eat it! I think that the CAA should stop full-time airline pilots from being examiners or advanced instructors. There should also be a much better structure for career instructors. It seems grossly unfair that a guy who has doen the job for years is still paid the same as the brand new guy. :)

[TheSilverFox]

Cessnababe,

your rhetoric sounds familiar!

You wouldn't be otherwise known as "The Mistress" that flies both south & north of EGKK would you?

[Whirlybird]

Cessnababe, I think I know who you are too. Did we meet at Bristol GS in February? Read my profile - easy to work out who I am!