Expected Pilot salary over 15 years

[WingsofRoffa]

Good afternoon

I am currently trying to work out whether jacking in my current role, committing to a £60k investment in an fATPL and pursuing a pilot career is worth it in the long run. I have been through a few older threads but it’s all a tad disjointed.

I know the below will be a mix on ‘finger in the air’ guesses and would depend entirely on contracts, airlines etc but I’m hoping for an ‘educated guess’.

What would the average, expected, total ‘pay per year’ be for a pilot starting from year 1 stretching all the way to 15 years in the future? Assuming I join RYR and move to a flag carrier (I want LH) a few years later and continue from there.

Any approximations would be great.

Thank you
WoR

[Paolo]

ppjn is a good site to check salaries... BA is there... they are all there! hope this helps!

Pilot Jobs Network - Recruitment news for airline pilots and aviation schools (http://www.pilotjobsnetwork.com/)

[WingsofRoffa]

ppjn is a good site to check salaries... BA is there... they are all there! hope this helps!

Pilot Jobs Network - Recruitment news for airline pilots and aviation schools (http://www.pilotjobsnetwork.com/)

It just gives me base salaries for FO and captain? How does sector pay etc then factor in?

[Riskybis]

It varies significantly between airlines , I would say what’s more important than pay ( and I reckon 90% of pilots would agree) is lifestyle

[Peter Chube]

Expected Pilot salary over 15 years

Reducing. At least in real terms.

[Busdriver01]

I’ll assume you’ve already had the “do I really want to fly for a career / am I prepared for the lifestyle ?” debate as I’d say that so much more important.

Purely Financially, it Depends entirely on what you earn now, If you worked on the basis of a starting salary of around £40k, and a Yr15 salary of around £100k you’d not be far wrong (could be a bit more than 100 but better to be conservative). It would be more linear in progression at a legacy, rising faster at a loco.

If that’s more than you currently earn, and will earn in 15yrs, and you can accept monthly loan repayments (if that’s how you fund the training) of c.£1000 (after tax!!!) for the next 15 years then go for it. If the sum is the other way round but you can afford the hit, then go for it. if the answer to both of those question is no...

[iggy]

Also ask yourself if you are going to be able to endure the killing rosters to earn that salary.

[macdo]

You might find these useful
https://www.pprune.org/terms-endearment/557114-salary-working-conditions-thread-2015-16-a.html

https://www.pprune.org/terms-endearment/604878-2017-pilot-earning.html?highlight=earnings

[DDobinpilot]

How old are you out of interest?

And I don’t know where you live, I assume UK of Europe as you are talking of the investment in £?

I’ll firstly say a £60k investment is probably on the conservative side and you’ll be looking at more £80k+ once you look at living costs, time waiting for that first job etc.

I think the previous responses tackle your initial question. One thing I’ll say is, as a career it can be quite difficult to make things work exactly how you want them to and live where you want to live. It’s a good idea in theory ‘start with RYR then move onto a legacy carrier for LH’. I mean maybe you just used that as an example to help you? I probably had this same plan, but ended up not getting into RYR at the time and my first job ended up with a legacy carrier doing LH, but it was based somewhere I did not want to live so I had to reluctantly move on.

In my opinion, legacy carriers are designed to join when you are in your 20’s tbh. Or early to mid 30s if you don’t mind the overall career salary sacrifice. If you have had another career and already have good cash behind you (house with equity etc) then that is a bit of a different story.

I suppose my overall point I want to make is, I love being an airline pilot and would not now do any other job, however, expect years of initial lifestyle sacrifices before you actually live anywhere near where you want to, also you can look at the amount of days off we get and think it looks amazing, but most of those days off are during the week when everyone else is at work, kiss goodbye to many of your weekends and you end up spending those days off recovering from tiredness/jet lag sat on the sofa/in bed.

Good luck!