Which airline has the best pilot pay?
 

Which airlines have the best paid pilots? I know there are many variables such as cost of living (Hong Kong), travel benefits, tax rate vs tax free status, fleet, routes etc.

But overall, which airline's pilots are sitting plum?

Google Pilot Jobs Network and do your own homework. There are also various threads on take home pay.

Why are you asking? Are you a journalist? New starter? Student?

Everyone knows that RYANAIR pays brilliantly. And its package of pension, healthcare, Loss of Licence, Share options, PHI and quality of life is even better. :mad:

Failing them, try Air Zimbabwe.

Looking on PPJN......Air Southwest plymouth based???? :}

Air France

I would have to check but I would hazard a guess at Lufthansa, and bearing in mind Cargolux have the same T&C's them too!

Dutch income tax will make your eyes water. Possibly some of the best health care and age care in the world.

The top earners are quite likely to be in the various Royal Flights and high end corporate jet jobs.

according to a certain welshmans post on the easyjet thread the pay at the big orange machine is not to be scoffed at ;)

Highest pay of course doesn't necessarily been best reward for effort/time expended. You have to look at the overall package.

A parameter I quite like when comparing salary in different countries is the number of units of time that you have to work to pay for a litre of petrol in said country.

Thats before we mention all sorts of benefits in kind (Ryanair excluded) and matters such as pensions, medical insurance, loss of licence etc - the list is endless.

Remember Qantas pay [in $US] has doubled in last 4 years due exchange rates!:eek:

Before that it was not that great.:hmm:

Not all about pay
 

Work for Qantas, with all the 1970 UK union practices, nit picking SOP's, surrounded by Australians 24/7. I can't think of anything worse for all the money in Oz+the rest of the world. And that's after very careful thought.

So we are both happy then.:E

Possibly true for a very small minority of pilots, but then how stable do you think their rostering is? I'd say probably as unstable as it gets, when your king/queen/entrepreneur decides to go to Paris for lunch, how much notice do you think you'd get? Lifestyle choice has a serious non monetary value. If you work for a decent legacy carrier with a decent work choice system, after 5 years you could pretty much guarantee your children's birthdays off, your mate's wedding, the majority of weekends or whatever you choose, and this gets better year after year, for me, it's worth a hit in cash.

Moo, I think you are correct for a lot of corporate operators, but usually not for the top paying ones since most, not all, of them operate with enough crew to be able to give you time off if / when you really need it.

Jobs in corporate aviation with "legacy pay" or more + pension, LOL, health insurance and about 180-200 duty days per year etc are still available out there. The big difference between airline and corporate jobs is usually the amount of flying and nights away from home, if you compare to short haul at least. I know very few airline pilots doing less than 750-800 hrs per your, but I know very few corporate pilots doing more than 350 hrs / year. Stby call out time for most guys I know is similar to that of most airlines so no big difference there. Having said that, most of the time you have no clue of when or where you are going before going on duty. For me that's fine, I just need to know when I am on duty and when I am off duty.

I am not necessarily interested, but how does one even go about finding out about and applying for said top corporate and royal flight jobs? Any info is most welcome!

for narrow body, it's Southwest Airlines....at least in the US.
The pay isn't based on hours, its called a 'trip' (essentially based on distance), and each flight is paid for a specific number of trips. There are some rigs that make up for delays, cancellations, extra flying, move-up pay, reassignment pay and whatnot.

average trips per month are around 100.
Airline Pilot Central - Southwest | Major-National-LCC

check that out to figure it out. Some pilots have pulled in upwards of 130 trips in one month, the record being 344. That guy got about 50000 USD in one month.

Working extra at SWA isn't that hard, and the benefits are VERY generous, as well as quality of life overall.

Thing about working in Oz is the ridiculously high direct and
indirect taxes - and set to become higher with a carbon tax.
Top that with the fact that Australia is very expensive to live.

The complexity of its tax system requires the services of a tax
accountant (and a damn good one at that) in order to ensure
tax minimisation. Country's extremely ubiquitous and highly
predatory federal tax agency (ATO) is certainly nothing like
Singapore's IRAS or Hong Kong's IRD.

One of course balances lifestyle, T&Cs, tax, cost of living etc
with salary which makes it a subjective choice, but purely for
top money and nothing else I'd go corporate ME.

Australia expensive? Try New Zealand!
 

Was in New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup, couldn't believe the cost of living for the average kiwi bloke. I was in Australia prior to going to NZ for the RWC and I found the cost of stuff far cheaper in Australia. I avoided the touristy bars and restaurants but the prices were still very steep even away from the well trodden tourist haunts.

I know contract skippers at Ryanair that are doing 800 to 900 hours per year(which most are) taking home in excess of 100 thousand euros per annum.

Strange but very true.

EK, i would hazard....@95-100 hrs PM.
And given the cost of living such as gas, auto car costs, free ( well almost....) accomodation and utilities, and no direct taxes....I would be quite certain.

How about a worst pay thread?!

No need for thread of worst paid airline ...even the dogs in the street know Ryanair can't be beaten on that one !.

Depends what contract you are on donie. :ugh:

Really Flaps 15...Even staff on old contracts are a long way behind their peers in other airlines. I won't mention the self employed Brookfielders who are in the middle of their usual company induced "Austerity"period . The 'majority' of Ryanair pilots have done a wonderfull job of creating profits of €550 million for the 'Z' levels. If you don't believe me contact your Union to compare rates...Wake up smell the coffee ....Ryanair pilots will have to wait a long time if they think O'leary is going to start giving payrises !. Yes there maybe 10 guys in Dublin on 'old' money...maybe 30 in STN ...In a company of 2500 pilots ...its minuscule. :ok: The sooner the employees grow a 'pair' the better

I do believe you. But I was talking about the actual take home pay of some of the "old" Brookfield contractors(it would surprise you). There are quite a few.

I agree there is only a few with the old decent permanent contracts.

It's worth remembering that "old" Brookfield contracts are not subject to Mcnamara's 3% outrageous charge for withholding your tax !!. Lets call a spade a spade here if you are on the 'old' contract you are left to your own devices with regard to tax ...and we all know how good those guys are at self disclosure :cool: I'm only jealous !!. Some of them have done very well thank you very much and good luck to them. Just don't use local schools and hospitals as they are for taxpayers, :suspect: But another case of divide and conquer for the Ryans management team. Anyway we are off topic ..I think we will both agree that its not the Ryans (leading the high pay league)

I agree donie, it certainly is not.

Dragonair has to be up there too. At least those on the older contracts.

I have a friend there who TAKES HOME nearly £200,000 per year.

Apparently there are still some old timers on even better contracts and that is before management or training pay!

Utterly ridiculous but great for those guys. Wish I passed my interview back in 2000!

Agree with swish.
As someone once correctly pointed out,
' When you die, whatever is left in your bank account is the extra work you did ..'
I agree with that thought.
And am working towards not working any more than what I need to be.

Agree 100% with your first sentence.
As regards your last point, I am well on the way to achieving the very last part, but struggling to achieve the living comfortably till then bit.
Anyhow, anything you leave behind will be taxed horrendously, so what will you leave for anyone? debt probably.
Enjoy it whilst you are (more or less) young enough to. Finally, we never know if we will wake the next morning.