Airline: Private
Type: G650
Hours Flown: 600
Salary: $19,500 (@£15,000 month tax free)
Roster: Commuting. No fixed roster, generally 2 weeks on/off. Lots of last minute trips, changes, etc. Mainly very long legs & min rest. We plan & manage the aircraft amongst 5 pilots. Probably spend 4 nights commuting a month.
No pension, no medical, no LOL & no 13th month anymore.
I miss the airlines, the grass isn’t always greener!

I’ve been meaning to ask. What exactly is a “senior FO” in Europe, and how do his/her rights and responsibilities differ from that of a “junior FO”?

Are captains also separated the same way?

In the US, senior captain or FO is merely an informal way to describe your relative seniority.

It just means they're on a different pay and have, on occasion at my airline atleast, slightly changed responsibilities. An upgrade from FO to SFO used to increase crosswind limits (although that has been harmonised now) and in my old base, SFOs were allowed to land on an pretty odd runway off an Surveillance Radar Approach. Those are the only two limitations/differences I can think of between the ranks although both of those have gone (the runway I mentioned is now a taxiway!).

In reality, it's just a difference in terms and conditions (which is what I assume is what you were really getting at). A lot of the new airlines (LOCOs etc) don't have yearly pay scales, at mine, there is 3 ranks before captain. Second Officer, First Officer and Senior First Officer. Someone that joins the airline (easyjet) with experience might enter as an FO or an SFO, though a cadet will join as SO. It takes 3 years to be made SFO from joining so that's not really that long. Pay (in USD for you) is around 65k as an SO, 91k as an FO and 105k as an SFO meaning a pilot with 3 years and perhaps 2500hrs is on $105. One rather crap feature of their contract at my outfit is the SO doesn't get any sector pay, although I've included a rough estimate for sector pay based on a typical number of annual hours (~750). Whilst I feel that after 3 years, that's a decent salary for the UK, it does mean that a career FO (SFO) is never going to earn much more than $105k although after year 3 performance and loyalty bonuses kick in too which might add another 10-15 percent.

The terms aren't world leading but personally, I was satisfied with my lot when I was an FO. When I joined 8 years ago, the starting salary for a cadet pilot was $20k so $65k during my RHS tenure, improvement was rapid, although still needs sector pay for it to feel vaguely fair.

Captains aren't seperated in that way at my airline nor any I can think of. Seniority means nothing at all, no extra leave, no first dibs at vacation/flight bidding, nothing. The salary stays the same, although a lot go part time. The only other thing is loyalty bonuses change, <5 years-5%, 5-9 years 10% and >10 years 15%. Nobody would ever mention seniority like would be discussed at a legacy as it's simply irrelevant.

SFOs are usually used for long haul ops. The SFO takes the left seat while the Captain rests.

Thanks for that detailed write-up. Definitely a very different system.

Stateside, even long haul is just captain or FO.

Drifting, but how long do you have to spend as SO now, because until recently the number was around four years. ~1yr flexi, 1yr SO, 2yrs FO (and >2500hrs).

Also, no one who joined since (I think) 2013 has had a loyalty bonus as an FO.

/pedantosaurus

I must be misunderstanding your post.
Am I correct in thinking you work 26 weeks (2 weeks On/Off) per year for almost USD$20,000 per month (tax free)? And you miss working for an airline?
In my country, to take home that much money I would have to earn over Half a Million Dollars ($600,000 actually) per year. And to earn that much I would have to fly 100hrs per month, work 6 days per week to acheive those hours. And still require a 20% payrise. Oh, and only have 6 weeks leave per year. I don't know which lush green paddocks you have been feeding in over your flying career, but....

As someone who wants to quit airline flying for a Corporate job, can you please elaborate on what part of airline flying you miss?, or why you are not happy in your current role?

In my orange airline based in Europe I spent 18 months as SO, done about 23 months as an FO and will shortly be an SFO once I have 2,500 hours. my 5% loyalty kicked in on my third anniversary as per contract

I’ve forgotten that ‘Europe’ covers a lot of different contracts, haven’t I?! Apologies...

JetBlue (US based LCC)
8. months A320 FO + 4 Months E190 CA (4th year)
US$185K Gross + 15% company retirement contrib. = $213K Total gross (not including. $6K per diem)
$43K Tax (including Social security, Medicare, federal and state Income) = $170K net
450 block hours (2 months offline for upgrade training), very few premium trips = average 17 days off per month

Profit Sharing $0.00 in spite of company earning $800 Million in profit.

Do not underestimate the costs of private pension, medical and LOL. A quite big chunk might go to that. He probably also has activities unrelated to flying, mostly when it comes to managing the planes and stuff.

But yeah, I do agree, he has a pretty nice deal and unless he flew for a very comfy airline most of his career, I can't see why he regrets it.

Similar attitude to BA then, only with BA the profit is even more extreme, into the Billions.

Sorry about the confusion. I didn’t realize there was a senior FO position (SFO) and I can see how you’d think I was talking about San Fran, Calif (CA).

As far as the pay, I am pretty senior but that salary is based on $352/hour.

SFO-SIN pays 32 hrs plus 5 hrs of FAR117 extension pay. I do 2 of those and 1 other 3 or 4 day trip that pays around 25 for a total of 99 hours per month.

In the 6 vacation months, I only have to fly the 2 SIN trips.

They match 16% of our salary and put it in the retirement account (not taxed). Profit sharing is just under 8% this year and IS taxed.

You can make more money by dropping your awarded trips and picking up premium pay trips if they become available. They pay either 150, 175 or 200% depending on how desperate they are.

I’m doing my taxes now and in 2019 I made taxable income of 495k and will pay 121k federal tax. No state income tax in Nevada.

What a blessing!! Can I marry you? 🤪

To take this conversation on a tangent. How is it that on the 2 sides of the Atlantic, particularly the U.K. the pay scales are so vastly vastly different.

I assume it’s because the US has a stable cost of living which is reflected in the pay , whilst in Europe pilots that are used to being poorly paid in Eastern Europe come to BA or Easy etc.... and think the pay is unbelievable compared to the previous airlines, therefore they don’t strike .
just a simple thought process from me , I’m sure I might get some flak for it

I honestly don’t know hence the question. When was the last major strike in US airlines?

Same as every job. Supply and demand....

Pre-Colgan and 1500 hour rule (plus 65 year old retirement) regional pilots getting paid nothing, majors doing alright but pay cut after pay cut assuming you didn’t get furloughed.

You can argue til the cows come home whether cadets make better pilots but it’s pretty undeniable that by lowering the barriers to entry the price of pilot labour goes through the floor. Hardly helps the cadet either when they spend the first few years wages on training.

Supply Vs Demand and cadet labour are all valid arguments, but increasingly our poor situation in Europe in the face of increasing living costs is due to freedom of movement in Europe.

Wet lease/charter operators like Smartlynx, Avion, Enter Air, TravelService and previously Small Planet (combined 100 aircraft) pay a fixed circa €90k (that's Euros) or GBP75k for captains. They simply wouldn't be able to crew their flights out of UK, Germany and Scandinavia (where they do 90% of their business) if it wasn't for the thousands of Eastern European pilots from Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland who take up those jobs. Those guys pay next to no tax and have their hotel accommodation is paid for wherever they operate in Europe. When they return home for their blocks off they usually retreat to a mansion in the countryside. The Western European pilots usually already live close to their bases so don't get an accommodation allowance and pay about 35% tax on the €90k / £75k. It's not a level playing field.

I don't see this changing after Brexit, if anything the CAA will give these operators the green light to continue operating as it would be seen as a Business to Business agreement between the tour operators or the airlines sub chartering work. We are a completely divided and de-unionised workforce thanks to Big Europe.