Originally Posted by
Australopithecus
I don't reside in North America, hence my mention of becoming an expat.
I was told (but did not verify) that a SW captain (friend of a friend) made $406 last year.
Wrt to 360 K...
4th year 737 captain pay $304/hr plus 10% retirement contribution plus $34/day incidentals plus $168/day meals plus six weeks vacation*, 18 sick days and full pay for trainng.
*on joining. 7.4 weeks after ten years service.
You can fly 900 hours in 10.5 months, get vacation pay etc and top $348 plus $20 k allowances plus $21k pension. I just spoke with a well known overtime hound who managed to top 400 last year, but he was the extreme outlier.
To balance: pretty expensive country, crap staff travel compared to the North American standard.
We have F/Os on A380 making north of $300...hell, a high time S/O did $280.
Company made record profits last year, btw.
No disrespect but none of the pay scales I have seen for Southwest Airlines suggest anything close to what you are suggesting. Of course I may be wrong or my info out of date.
In fact both Delta's and United's 12 year pay scale for captains on the B737 pay better than Southwest by $12K to $14K a year.
In the case of United on his 12th year a captain will make about $219K and at Delta about $217K that is for their base salary, no overtime included and certainly no per diem which shouldn't be counted for a salary.
If you want to compare apples with apples then only the base salary counts all other benefits are "extras".
BTW, the figure I get for Southwest is $214.45/hour for a 12 year captain.
The captain flying the Airbus 350 at United on the 12th year scale make just under $285K.