What they fail to consider is that an airline pilot can only fly 900 hours a year and the hourly rate is for scheduled block flying hours not duty hours which can easily reach 1500 hours per year. So at 900 hours a year and £45 an hour a pilot can earn £40500 a year. £40500 divided by 1500 duty hours a year is more like £27 an hour. Then consider the £100000 loan you have to payback at that untaxed rate. A typical flight training loan repayment is £1200 a month so at the REAL £27 an hour rate you'll need to do 45 duty hours a month just to service the loan. So really a true comparison for you is to add those 45 'cost' hours to each duty month which gives 2040 hours - divide the £40500 by 2040 which gives an actual hourly rate 'comparing apples with apples - pilots with waiters' of £19.85.