Survey: 2018, Instructor's terms and conditions on a changing market?
 

As airlines are vacuuming everything with a license and a pulse, instructor tickets are becoming sought after.
As schools struggle to find competent trainers, conditions are improving for the latter, with poaching becoming reality ( who would have believed it in the past 2 decades!?)
Would be interesting to track the evolution.
If you want to remain anonymous, PM me and I will publish your numbers. (I will not change or edit your message if only to protect identity)
Let me start the dance:
Southern Europe, senior FI, IRI, CRI, EUR 34.000 + 25 euro/hour all gross
Southern Europe, Chief Flight Instructor, EUR 48.000 gross + bonus
Advertised: in Austria, Graz, annual gross salary: PPL Instructor: EUR 45,000, MEP/IR/CPL Instructor: EUR 60,000 with a chance of progressing to Jet AOC
Advertised: In Ireland, Cork, Senior FI/IRI/CRI, no basic pay, 75 euro/hour on aircraft, 65 euro/hour on simulator all gross.

If I had to pay the rates in your post to my PPL instructors there would be only one outcome. Sell the Club or close down.

There is a limit to what the average prospective pilot will pay for training. Most clubs and schools in the UK are already at or close to it.

I hope your club will run for a long time and will not suffer due to changes in our industry.
Clubs and small ATOs are a needed component of our industry, many among us caught the bug or had their first taste of flying at a club.
I understand your concerns, as a club manager, about staffing in this market. Hopefully, you have local PPL instructors with no wish to move to greener pastures.
As you noticed my post is mainly aimed at career instructors, mostly teaching CPL, IR, Multi, not to belittle PPL instructors as they are traditionally at the bottom of the pay scale until experience and ratings got them up the ladder. We all started somewhere.
Understandably recreational pilots have a budget limits for their passion, limits which cannot stretch the way professional training has, running in many 10's or 100's of thousands.
Again, my aim was at professional training instructors, apologies if it wasn't clear.

If I may, what conditions a club PPL FI can expect on the Queen's Island?

Safe Landing

£20 per hour flown max (£12-£15 usually ), no basic, Your doing it for Love arn't you? Your retired, You have got your pension what more do you want. All as said to by a Club owner.
Sorry mate I jacked it in after 42 Years flying.
***

From private message

"northern England

All training 30 quid an hour no retainer.

Apart from instructors who only teach for the LAPL who get 25.

The school pays for FI rating. But only those who don't have CPL as they just leave"

Thank you for participating

From private message

"some data for your survey...
Integrated ATO (Spain)
FI (includes IRI) ca. 20k/yr
CRI 30k/yr
gross (euro)
Perks: we have about 2 months leave, and only work Monday to Friday, excluding public and bank holidays.

They have the cheek to be disappointed with us for trying to move on to airlines, and tell us they pay us as much or even better than what some airlines are offering at entry level. Unfortunately, they seem to not realize airline pay improves after 2 years, while their deal will be the same in 2 years time if the school is still operating...

And I miss some "minor" perks like loss of license insurance, etc... (money's not everything).

If instructing was so awesome people would give up their airline jobs and go back to instructing. I only know people that come back and do it strictly part-time, if they don't have a family or other hobbies.

Cheers!"

Thank you for participating

OK. How short are you? I am 80 but could still pass a Class One medical. Lapsed ATPL, 15000 hours (Canberras, Hercules, Electras) and a RAF A2 on piston and jet Provosts in the past. Could I find a bit of free flying somewhere in SE England?

4 Turbo. I'm 68 and originally thought I'd hang up my instructor's hat next year when the rating expires but will be renewing after all at the request of my FTO. Apparently, older instructors are quite the thing these days!

From Private message

"I'd rather just stay anonymous on this thread, but a PPL school in northern Scotland has now increased it's pay offer to £35 per hour flown, same pay for solo student flights, and decent pay for groundschool.

Same pay for a full PPL or an LAPL only instructor, I think slightly less while restricted though.

Advert is online quoting the above figure"

Thank you for participating

From Private message

"thanks for your thread.
Here some data for FI mostly :

ATO south of France,
1400 net for 45 hrs guaranteed per month, about 25eu/brut/ per Hour, above the minimum, but hard to reach a decent income due to solos flight (counted 0.75 factor)
Possibility upgrade to IRI CRI, depending if they like you or not...if you're a good boy or not. There is no seniority list, it all depends on your face.
Many FI left (IR-CRI as well), including myself very soon hopefully https://www.pprune.org/images/smilies/wink2.gif ( but shhhhuut). They do not do any effort to keep staff, they do not realise they are running into a wall...no respect
for instructors.
Notice period 3 months! (they do not deserve that we respect it....and I won't)"

Thank you for participating

I am looking for airline job and since I'm not waiting type of guy, missing flying, I'm considering to do FI rating and to fly until something come up. What do you guys suggest where to start training (in terms of salary and conditions)?

I am surprised to read that pay is still so low in the current market which needs qualified EASA instructors, especially those with experience and additional privileges such as IRI,ME & FIC. I know the US schools used to train hundreds if not thousands of students per year for CAA/JAA and there was a big demand for instructors, surely there are still good opportunities to teach in the USA at descent pay rates? Anyone care to comment?

I would love to work in the USA. Tell me the first ATO or Flightschool that is willing to sponsor me for a working visa !!
Gerrit
FAA ATP, CFII, MEI
EASA CPL. FI, IRI,CRI
ALL CURRENT, INCL BOTH CLASS 1 MEDICAL

Good point about the working visa I guess this might be difficult to get? Perhaps a good idea to contact the UK & EASA approved schools listed in the USA (I think there are about 5) and find out if they are hiring, from what I know, student numbers are down because there is a general shortage of instructors.

Good Luck!

FlyEFT for one...

From Private Message

"Interesting thread. I graduated as a 40+-year-old fATPL holder just as the recession hit in 2008. Fortunately, the ATO where I did all my training asked me to go back to do an FI rating which they full-funded. Stayed with them a while, moved on, but never left the world of instructing. Until recently I was working as a contractor pretty much full-time for £25ph flying-pay only at a modular school in the UK. I'm still there, but in full recognition of the current FI marketplace, I'm now being paid a salary of £25k teaching PPL(A) and CPL(A). You never say never about another flying job, but I love teaching and quite frankly wouldn't really want to do anything else. Also, think the current salary is a pretty fair one and there are options to earn more teaching as a CRI. "

Thank You for participating

A personal offer from a college in Spain, headhunting through Linkedin for a CRI ME:
"Monday to Friday flight schedule
Aircrafts: Beechcraft Baron BE55, Beechcraft Bonanza BE33, Socata TB10 Tobago
Uniforms
Meals
Free annual medical examination
Free linguistic competency exam
Free renewal of flight instructor certificates which are used in the education process
22 working days vacations plus New Year and the Holy Week according to the Salamanca University calendar
EUR 30,000 annual salary plus EUR 5,000 upon signing a one-year contract"
Declined and wished them Good Luck.

Interesting thread - it seems that for commercial training the 'going rate' is less than it was 20 years ago and for PPL FI's it looks about the same (although I knew of salaried PPL jobs with an hourly flying/sim/groundschool rate on top). What do the big ATO's in the UK pay these days?