MONEY: Just to get an idea of the way things are...
 

I have bee reading several forums on Pprune and as you all know, money, cost etc etc is a constant theme.

Some comments stuck in mind and it made me think that perhaps some airline pilots are underestimating how good their pay is in comparison to some other careers where arguably, there is far more study involved, a far higher level of qualifications required etc etc.

So as a benchmark lets take an annual salary of £25,000...

Do we think this is:

• poor
• could be better
• okay
• quite good
• very good.

Look at this in terms of your life away from work. If this is what you earn, how satisfied would you be

Poor. If that was my salary, I would find another job. Fair and simple, unless there was nothing else, I would not work for that salary. Yearly family expenses alone are higher than that, hence the poor rating.

Again it depends what your situation is. How high are the living expenses where you work. Do you commute? Does your family stay with you. How many nights away from home etc etc. Cannot really just give an analysis based on a lump sum without knowing what the rest of the package is like.

Sleepy,

Bit of an unusual thread you have started, dont think its as easy as saying how good a £25k salary is? Too many variables. It's more an issue of the large financial investment it takes to become a career pilot in return for a much smaller salary. And the lack of job security etc.

I am, like you work in the oil and gas industry, and you and I know we receive a very good salary for the days we work, (offshore at least) I know it's more than some captains and SFOs that have posted on here. My investment was £4000 of my own money with not too much studying to get where I am now, a well paid, secure enough job where I work 20 weeks a year.

The issue of low salaries on here I'm gathering relates to spending some where between 40k to 90k to complete training without a job guarantee and with low salaries at the end



You wouldn't be working in Azers by any chance?

£25,000 is a straight-out-of-university starter salary for someone entering a Profession, young, single, renting a flat, office-based 9-5 job, expecting a significant rise after a year or so or after passing a professional exam.

Wilky,

It is an unusual thread, but the point was, 25k is actually a reasonable salary. When I started in oil and gas i was on 21k and managed to live reasonably well. So when someone on another thread turned their nose up at a £32k salary on year three of a training phase with easy jet I was quite surprised. I would be delighted with that. No im not in Azers. Im nearer Japan.

I suppose my point is, im reading a lot of money complaints from guys who have recently qualified and are working for airlines. Im trying to assess if these guys are worse off than others in different industries with similar levels of qualifications etc and at similar levels in their careers.. You cant use the line "but it costs a lot to train as a pilot" because thats not going to affect how much you get paid.

Are you aspiring to become a manager, sleepy?

£25k?

Are you serious?

I made more money than that driving a taxi cab, where the training was about 1 week of reading a city map and memorising street names, and 3-4 trips with the taxi boss in the front seat to learn the meter.

For flying an expensive piece of equipment, fast and high, in all sorts of weather, with other people's lives in your hands... it's a joke.

Not entirely.

What you have to understand is that it isn't so much a salaried occupation any more, it is more of a theme park ride! It often reminds me of a cheaper and much more popular version of those Soyuz rocket launches, where wealthy individuals buy themselves into the programme in order to satisfy an ambition. Whilst they undoubtably displace a career astronaut, they do help to finance the whole operation and there is still an experienced commander on board.

Airlines desperately want to reduce, and if possible eliminate operating (input) costs wherever possible. If they could get rid of one of the pilots, they would do it in a heartbeat. They can't, so they are required to have "qualified" individuals in place. If they were (as they always used to be,) seeking the best qualified and experienced individuals they could obtain by competitive tendering, the rewards would reflect the supply and demand at the pitched level required. However what they have discovered is, that there is a large supply of individuals who are completely willing to pay for the " Airline First Officer" experience. These people are willing to pay sums in excess of £100,000 to buy the basic qualification that lets them sit in the seat. Then they will pay the airline for the type rating, the line training, the uniform, and all the paraphanalia that goes with the task.

So successful has this been from a revenue standpoint, that a new industry has been created that in many ways is even better than the original desire to simply remove the seat altogether. In some airlines, and that number is growing, the right hand flight deck seat is the most profitable seat on the aircraft!

A great many people seem to screw their eyes shut tight and think that if they pay for this theme park ride, by the time they open their eyes again, the world will somehow have changed, the queue will have evaporated, and the airlines will be pleading for them to work for the salaries they might have been offered a decade ago for their services. What really happens is, they open their eyes to discover the theme park has got bigger, the rides are more expensive and their particular adventure is over!

So what of the future?

It is always difficult to predict something that is uncertain, however a good indicator would be to look at what is happening now.

Firstly, there is no evidence that the supply of revenue from "Buy to fly" candidates is going to dry up anytime soon. There are airlines in the UK and around the world that are investing heavily in buildings, simulators, and other infrastructure, to cater purely to this new ab-initio market. Given the sharp recession, a clear sign of just how confident they are in this future revenue stream.

On top of that, there is a ready supply of experienced pilots available from the corporate casualties of the last few years, as well as those that may be yet to come.

Then there are the changes in legislation that have over the last few years extended the average pilots working life by anything up to ten full years. Coupled with the general state of the economy, this has all but eliminated any demand that might have been caused by natural wastage.

In 3 months from now, there will be changes in pension legislation that will raise the early retirement age from 50 to 55. This will undoubtably result in many senior pilots drawing pension benefits early. This will be seen as both a protection strategy in a very unstable market, and it will enable those same pilots to endure anything up to 40% salary cuts without any discernable change to their individual short term lifestyles. If you don't think that will have an impact on the general market conditions you are deluding yourself.

Many of these same pilots will also accept that they now must continue to work many years passed their planned retirement dates to sustain their future plans. Indeed changes to taxation levels coming next year in 2011 in the UK, will impose significant penalties on many pilots at the top of the earnings ladder, such that reductions in salary levels, coupled with pension cushions, will almost be welcome. Of course any downward pressure on terms and conditions will permeate throughout the entire industry.

It is very hard to see where the "good news" might be in the short or even medium term, when you look at the real world fundamentals. However going back to the original point of the thread, why does it matter what you think is a good salary, when this is simply becoming an entertainment experience. You pay the theme park, it doesn't pay you. If you think it is bad now, just wait and see what the future holds. That is before the industry focus starts to move from from the revenue potential in the right seat to that in the left.

my point was, 25k is a very good starter salary for an engineer for example. Sure you can earn more driving a cab. You can earn more working in Macdonalds! The difference is, similar to the aviation business, when you enter engineering as a graduate, you effectively know nothing and the employer has to educate the graduate to understand how to apply their knowledge to their activities and once completed, usually over a four year period... the big bucks roll in.

Also, surely the terms and conditions being whispered around are based newbies to the job? Another feature of engineering which I suspect is shared with aviation is once you are away from the trainee bracket, you never discuss money or conditions. You could have two guys doing the same job in the same office one earning £30 an hour, the other earning £60 or more. Is this the same in aviation and are pay and conditions partly down to the individuals skills and personal attributes?

At 25k, you get what you pay for

@ Bealzebub
 

Bravissimo maestro!
:D:D:D:D

What's the name of this subforum, again?

That's roughly my annual salary as a year 3 turboprop FO. I look at in terms of buying multi crew hours cheaply because I don't make any profit out of flying after work travel and home expenses. I am lucky, I have another stable income, but I would love to be paid what I think I deserve for flying, and as a return on my rather huge financial investment for the license. No jobs anywhere anyway for the likes of me...

As a non-pilot I am envious of the earnings you guys make, reportedly, but do not begrudge you one penny of it. The level of acceptable salary is very much job dependant and very definitely CAN be considered in relation to training costs. £25K may be acceptable to some, indeed some may aspire to it, but for guys such as you it is an insult. In addition to the initial and ongoing costs you face the responsibity you bear must be born in mind as well as the possibly disruptive lifestyle.

I am annoyed in reading some of the stuff on here as to how your T&Cs are under threat by the voraciousness of the likes of EZY and RYR who now see their workforce as a cash cow. However there is some self-interest involved in that any downward pressure on the upper echelons of the workforce, bankers aside, will very quickly filter down to the lower levels where I am.

1) Rubbish 2) Not satisfied.. however, I will expand.

My neighbour works as a Regional Director at Tesco, earns more than me, gets cheap mortgage, cheap goods, cheap food and more time off.. But it's all about feeling elite, or is it? My Daughters don't give a fig about the after dinner muse, but they would like cheap IPods!

IPA reckoned Average Jet FO was 45K, Average Jet Cpt 72K, don't know figures for the egg beaters, but a mate is a TC on the Dash at Flybe and he gets the same as a Jet TC..or there abouts.. pay "grade" not fleet so I understand

The comparison for experienced pilots should be set at 50K, then an experienced FO would compare with a systems integration engineer of 15 years experience designing weapons, aeroplanes, etc.

The FO would earn more than most project managers and IT personnel but less than experienced scientist engineers or high calibre employed consultants. For the latter one would have to be a legacy training captain and examiner, which be a far easier and much less stressful position to attain.

If one starts to pluck square mile salaries, then we need to quote Dubai pilot prices :}

As a 30 year (51 year old) engineer a starting salary of 25K would not even get me answering the advert.

Hi,

your first flying job can pay as little as approx 1500 UK pounds per month net on a 2 crew aircraft. Moving overseas with the required experience you can make approx 11000 UK pounds net per month.

If i was 21 years old siting in a nice turbo prop aircraft getting 25000 grand per year i would be content in the short term. My goal however would be to move on to a job where the money was better.

Your ideas change as you get older. Starting out in your career you will be happy to take any job to get on that first rung of the ladder. With that may come a lower salary than you hoped.

Exactly.. starting wage as an FO for a proper Asian overseas carrier is about 15,000 EURO a month. If you're dumb enough to accept 25000BP a year.. then you're worth exactly what you get.

Stop being a little bitch and get paid.

£25K ? you have got to be kidding
 

In engineering industry you wont keep 25 year old graduates with 3 years of (half assed) experience for that: and engineering isn't well paid. You would struggle to pay rent, run a car and keep yourself ammused after income tax, NI, council tax, utilities etc. Well qualified for tax credit support if any dependants, which is a clue.

Chaps,

It's all down to experience and responsibility. Having spent 10 years in Engineering/Management prior to my flying career, the most I could have earned was around £40k. At the start of my engineering career I was on a wage that represented my youth and inexperience - around £18k in todays terms. I ended my Engineering days on around £40k as a relatively experienced Engineering Manager (Manufacturing).

After a substancial (un-aided) investment in flight training I was lucky enough to secure my first flying job on a DHC8-Q400. Now, this is where it becomes interesting. As a brand new FO on a modern Turbo Prop my starting salary was about £22k. To be honest I was happy with that as a starting salary as I was brand new, inexperienced and getting paid to fly.

The question is, does this wage refelect your experience and responsibility. Well, you could argue that a new FO earning £22k could have 78 peoples lives in his hands in the event of his Capt becoming incapacitated (It has happened folks on a DHC8-Q400 - MAN), on the other hand, you could argue that with such little experience why should they earn more????

It's very subjective. All I will say is, after several years of flying commercially myself and several thousand hours later I'm still earning less than I did as an Engineer (final years), but hopefully that will change soon.

As an Industry per se, our T&C's seem to be driven in a cyclic evolution dictated by supply and demand. At the moment there are too many pilots for the industry, so employers have reacted by offering less for new joiners. A sham maybe, but most airlines are heavily streamlined to maximise profits at the cost of you and me. When the good times return, hopefully things will improve.

To answer the original post, I think £25k for a brand new FO is good. Not ideal, nethertheless not bad, especially if you are 20 years old and your first job. If you are 30 years old and supporting a family, maybe you should have thought long and hard before jumping into this industry!!

Good luck to all:ok: