Are the Chinese going to push Pilot salaries up?

[Obi Wan Kirk]

I have been looking at the pilot market recently and see it's is finally picking up again.

The Chinese need lots of pilots and I can see their packages for expats increasing around 10-25% in next few years to get people to join. Probably lots of Australian, New Zealand and South American pilots will leave Middle Easter carriers to go East.

Doctors and also other professions have seen significant increases in their salaries over the last ten years, maybe it's time pilots had a bit of a break.
We seem to be working longer hours for less pay. Let's hope the Chinese help things to improve.

What do you guys out the think of the situation?

[PLovett]

I suspect the Chinese are looking at the rest of the world and saying quietly to themselves, "May you live in interesting times."

Broadly speaking, the world of airlines is going to undergo some radical changes in the next 5 to 10 years with the caveat that the world financial system doesn't eat itself for lunch again. :ugh::mad:

[Plectron]

I certainly hope the pay is going up for the guys staying in the business. Turkish is offering, for a B777 Captain, what I made 15 years ago on an MD-80 working 3 on 4 off domestic. And no, for the inevitable wise guys, the company is not out of business, did not go into bankruptcy, nor did they steal the pensions. The pay has to go back to at least where it was and hopefully up.

[Prawn2king4]

You should maybe look at it from an experienced Chinese pilot's point of view. He's not overly impressed by perhaps a less experienced expat getting a deal more than he is, for doing the same job..... ok a few years ago, but as experience increases, not too acceptable any more. Maybe you should be asking, as they are, when do their salaries increase?

[Basil]

You should maybe look at it from an experienced Chinese pilot's point of view. He's not overly impressed by perhaps a less experienced expat getting a deal more than he is, for doing the same job.
So, why would a company employ more expensive Western pilots?
Because they don't have enough of their own.
Been happening for years in The Gulf. Despite what we think of the job, when I worked for GF a lot of educated young Arabs didn't want to sit in a flight deck in the middle of the night or, IIRC, nor did those who WERE pilots care for doing standby :*

[Piltdown Man]

Are the Chinese going to push Pilot salaries up?

Only if there is a real shortage. If there is, I'd suggest that it will only be a very short term requirement for experienced type rated pilots until their own training system system spits out the required number of pilots. I can not imagine the Chinese won't be able to supply their own long term needs.

PM

[wasteofcargospace]

I remember reading an article about this several years ago, predicting this very situation. At the time the article said that many young Chinese and Japanese college students viewed the job of pilot as a mundane job which involved long, unsociable hours for relatively poor pay. At the time the students interviewed were almost all hoping to go into the technology sector and not a single one had any interest in the aviation field. If the article is proved right it would mean the increase in jobs there are not due to expats taking jobs from the locals, simply taking work noone else wants to do.

[superspotter]

simply taking work noone else wants to do
Blinkin 'eck!! That sort of quote used to only be applied to jobs like refuse collectors and the like (no offence intended).
Now it is being applied to flight deck personnel?? :confused:

[Fareastdriver]

The employment system is different in China. When a Chinese pilot joins or is selected for an airline it is incumbent on him to work for them for life. The licensing system is also geared the same way because the company organises licensing and medicals and keeps the documentation. You can not leave a company if you get fed up with them as you are effectively bonded. To do so would cost a fortune to get your release documents without which you cannot work for any other company. The other side of the coin is that you are guaranteed a job for life, even if you lose your license for medical reasons. I cannot see any Western company paying 80% of captain’s basic salary for more than twenty years for doing nothing. I know of Chinese pilots in that position.

The civil aviation school in Sichuan is churning out pilots as fast as it can but the problem is captains. The old dogs of the 80s are dying out. Some of them merely because they cannot grasp ICAO English, which has now become compulsory. It is only a decade since the first recruits went overseas for training and they are now coming up to their command but they are still only a few dozen a year, meanwhile the LHS has to be filled by somebody in the foreseeable future.

Should an airline require a pilot from the other side of the world then if the living and social conditions are similar to the employee’s native environment then he would not expect much of a change in salary. Should you require that pilot to live and work in a completely different environment then you have to pay him to move. The disparity between what a national and an expatriate pilot would receive does not cause a problem in my experience. The Chinese captains I know are not short of a bob or two and neither are their wives. China, now, has not got an envy based social system so if you make a pile then good luck to you. “To be rich is glorious”, is what Deng Xiaoping said. At the end of the day they know that when they no longer require you they will show you the door.

Pilots are a commodity like anything else and will be paid whatever who ascertains as to their worth. China has a history of paying over the odds to guarantee supplies, from iron ore to oil so just because the Chinese airlines pay top dollar is does not mean that the rest of the world is going to follow suit.

Its all over now but it was among the best years of my llife.

[FCS Explorer]

china is kinda big with lotsa people and i don't belive that absolutely no-one there will consider being a pilot as a good career. and if the job's reputation goes down so far that the airlines have to raise the wages then again it might become attractive to some Chinese.
although kinda funny to think that in the future all the "dirty jobs" in china will be done by some western "long noses"....

[Son of Oz]

I believe some of the Gulf airlines may have to push up salaries. Eastern Skyjets is urgently looking for B737-300 & -400 crews particularly tri's and others are running short so maybe China can push up salaries:)

[proceeding outbound]

A very interesting debate but surely the crux of the matter is that there a very few (if any) flight training schools in China. I expect this will change in time and then expatriates will no longer be welcome as has happened in developing countries throughout the world.

[Fareastdriver]

There is a large, very large, aviation academy in Western China. That is where ab-initio and Chinese military pilots do their stuff. On top of that there are a considerable number funded by airlines such as Air China and China Southern in flight academies in the USA and Australia. The Chinese military do not release that many pilots, they are strapped for aircrew like any other air force, so the main induction in from colleges.

[Loose rivets]

I think I forgot I was on the medical forum when I went into hyper-ramble about pay and inflation.


http://www.pprune.org/medical-health/413868-cost-class-1-renewal.html#post5668143

[Obi Wan Kirk]

I have been flying for 24 years and I remember when I got my PPL (in 1986) guys on my course went onto CPL right away and landed very good jobs. The pay was good and they weren't flying much (50 hrs/month). Things in the last 10 years in particular have changed and this profession isn't really worth all the effort and sacrifice.

It's probably better to fly as a hobby and maybe buy a share in a Very Light Jet and fly when you want, with who you want, to where you want at what time you want!

[747JJ]

Any increase would be nice.

In 2000 being a new inexperience 727 FO for a private owner I made 6500 USD a month add 175 USD per diem (including food allowance) free laundry etc perks. Average was about 11800 USD a month. Good to remember that in that time most European currencies where tied to Euro or Ecu and the exchance rate was about equal. Ie you could get around 1.1 EUR with a Dollar. Nice when living in Europe. I flew around 300 hours a year but spent most of the year in 4 to 5 star hotels in real shaitholes like Bahamas, Bermuda, Venice, Paris, London, Nice and many other dives :} Naturally hotels, transportation and all other expenses where taken care of by the company.

After flying 747's and 767's as Captain, my take home pay today as A320 Captain is around 6000 Eur a month as an average in 2009. This year promises about 8 % less per month. There are no perks, no retirement or pention. No ID travel benefits. I pay for my own accomodation in the city I am based (Subject to 1 month notice from company for base change). My hotel class has dropped significantly to living in a dump like Ibis when ever there is a need to stay somewhere. I fly around 800h a year with a very tight roster.

My salary is about 2900 eur a month less today as a Captain than I made May 2nd 2000 as a very young pilot. If you use the exchange rate of May 2nd 2000 exchange rate the associated loss of income is around 6000 eur a month. How's that for degradation of conditons. Oh yes don't forget about inlfation since 2000 and the associated increase in cost of living.

I really hope that the insatiable appetite of China for pilots will force the salaries up elsewhere. As much as I have been against moving to the east for family reasons, the packages offered by Chinese airlines are really starting to sound attractive.

[FE Hoppy]

There are some wild guesses and nonsense on this thread.

I'm currently in China teaching yet another class of ab-initio first officers. We have been training this airline for a couple of years and another for about the same time. They have FO's in the pipeline but the expansion is such that there is a gap of Captains so for the next 3-5 years there is a big market for and therefore high salary for experienced Cpt. All the current estimates are for around 4 to 5 thousand new pilots per year required, Half of which will of course have to be captains. That's for the next 5 years at least.

The Airline group we work for is one of the largest with about 10 or so Airlines of various sizes and fleets. They have a problem with expat retention due to cultural differences. It's a big problem and has resulted in several aircraft delivery delays. They are working on some interesting solutions to the retention problem including month on month off schedules and long distance commutes.

I imagine when the exodus from the middle east begins the knock on effect will boost pay across the board for Captains. As there is no great demand for FO's I don't see it having an impact on them.

[skyflyer737]

I know I'll probably throw the cat amongst the pigeons and people will get very upset but rather than always being of the opinion that as pilots we are now underpaid compared to how it used to be decades ago, how about the view that pilots were somewhat overpaid in the old days and salaries have come down to a more realistic level?

I'm not talking the profession down as I myself work hard and would love to earn more, but last year I went to work less than 120 days and earned before tax 50,000 GBP which is 57,500 EUR or 76,500 USD. Not bad pay for sitting in the RHS of a 737 and the best thing of all is I love the job. A far better position than in my last career which lasted 10 years and where I earned far less in a graduate managerial job for working double the days with four times the stress I have now.

Don't shoot me down - just throwing a viewpoint into the air for discussion!

[zerotohero]

50k as a train driver living in london is not 50k as a pilot living in many other parts of the world, london is an expencive hole

well, its not a hole, its a great city I think if you have a high high income, with an average or low income its just to expencive to really live well there.

[ZQA297/30]

The problem in Europe has been that politcally Pilots tend to be center right and are reluctant militants, this has allowed some extremely ruthless management types to take advantage.

Too true. Pilots are reluctant to face the fact that the only way to ensure good T&Cs is to negotiate hard as a UNION.

Trying to be "professionals" (pseudo managers) and being part of an association, rather than a union, always results in glee and mirth amongst real management. True or not, Leo,Willy?

Until pilots are able to understand that you do not get what you are worth, but what you negotiate for, the downward trend will continue.

And by negotiate I do not mean militant strikes, etc, I mean a well thought out campaign with proactive PR, economic analysis, effective internal and external communication, and above all commitment by the membership.

It sounds so easy, but it is incredibly hard to restrain disagreements due to narrow self-interest.