Your summer airfares, explained

by philg

I was chatting with a guy who manages private jets for a variety of billionaires. Is he hiring pilots who were first officers at regional airlines? “No,” he responded. “I hire 65-year-old airline captains because they won’t quit on me.” He can’t keep younger pilots because making $500,000 to $600,000 per year at a mainline airline is straightforward (see “American Airlines CEO tells pilots the carrier is prepared to increase pay to up to $590,000 a year” (NBC) for example). “Captains at United who know how to work the schedule are making over $1 million per year,” he said.

From CNBC:

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25 thoughts on “Your summer airfares, explained”

  1. The guild system is pervasive in US.. doctors, civil engineers, etc, etc. Now airline pilots.

    In all cases, the government is responsible by creating regulations limiting entrance of new workers (“for public safety”, of course) and then essentially allowing the now limited group to control the regulations. As long as they don’t forget to butter up politicos.

    • @Toucan that’s not how I read it. It’s a median for all seniorities. There is a pull-down menu below the data where one can select 15+ years experience. The median so filtered is $113,431 and the $143k at 1-sigma, and $174k at the highest end of the distribution. One can also break out actual reported salaries by rank, the four categories are: First Officer, Pilot/FO, Pilot, Senior Pilot/Scheduler. The high end of the most likely range (1-sigma, I assume) for the most senior rank is $244k. Which isn’t bad, but is not even half of half-a-mil. One can also repeat for different airlines, cities, etc. Atlanta/Delta seemed to be a good way to access the most populated data set–not tons of responses tbh, but seems representative enough for basic conclusions which suggest that $500-600k isn’t obviously “straightforward”. (with $1M possible for those who know how to “work the system”.

    • TS: $100,000 is a first-year salary at a regional airline now. See https://www.flightglobal.com/strategy/alpa-wins-recent-pilot-pay-gains-at-us-regional-airlines/150006.article for how starting copilots are getting $100/door-closed-hour. At 1000 hours/year that’s $100,000 before the per diem (paid for every hour while on a trip), training pay, extra duty pay, and other minor bits.

      (When I worked for a regional airline in 2008, the pilots who wanted to make extra money who’d already hit 1000 hours per year would sign up for various jobs in the training center. They might be sim partners for people whose own sim partners got sick or needed remedial training. They might teach a class or run the sim itself.)

      I predict that all airlines go bankrupt in the next downturn! That’s the only way they will get out from under these latest union agreements. See https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines

    • Why not replace pilots with ChatGPT?

      The “experts” are telling us ChatGPT can do the jobs of tech jobs (coders, computer programmers, software engineers, data analysts), legal industry jobs (paralegals, legal assistants), market research analysts, teachers, finance jobs, traders, graphic designers, accountants, customer service agents, and more, so why not fly a plan?

      I would take this a step further and replace stewardesses with ChatGPT-enabled robots and let the robots discipline unruly passengers rather than hear awful news of stewardesses being abused by passengers.

      In ChatGPT we trust!

  3. Given that $500,000 (there should be updated currency symbol for bidebucks, b$?) fills – up large airliner just once, $500,000 experienced pilot salary seems like a rounding error on airline balance sheet. I prefer world where airline pilot who is responsible for lives of hundreds of people, is paid more then paper (now electron?) pusher middle manager or some BS master. Probably I am being naive but still it gives some mental comfort, after re-watching old movie Airplane!

    • @philg, that was in 2019, when fuel costs were at historic lows in inflation-adjusted dollars. I may had wrong jet fuel prices but today filling up Boeing 747 is going to cost over one hundred thousands of dollars. Do not really want the lowest bidder in the pilot seat when I fly

    • perplexed: That does seem inconsistent. However, airlines are flying fewer hours and receiving higher ticket prices per hour. So I think it is possible that they’re spending a lower percentage of revenue and/or total spending on fuel, even if fuel costs a lot more. Remember that $1000 is the new $500 when it comes to airfare!

    • Also, labor expense includes paper pushers and executives, at around $500,000 average total compensation for experience pilots would definitely a fraction of annual fueling cost for a large airplane.

    • Perplexed: A quick Google search shows that an Airbus A320 holds about 7,000 gallons of fuel (see https://aircraft.airbus.com/en/aircraft/a320-the-most-successful-aircraft-family-ever/a320ceo ). Let’s suppose that 5,000 gallons is burned during a flight that is 6 hours door-closed-to-door-open. If fuel is 3 Bidies per gallon, that’s 15,000 Bidies for fuel. If the pilots are at an average of 200 Bidies per hour (assume a junior crew is operating this slightly-smaller aircraft), that’s 2,400 Bidies for the pilots in straight cash. But let’s not forget benefits (health insurance, pension) and payroll taxes, so maybe 4,000 Bidies as the pilot cost. But don’t forget that the airline also has to pay 4 flight attendants, gate agents at both ends, mechanics, a few ticket agents, and one or two people to answer the 800-number (based on hold times that I have experienced, I’m assuming that it is only one or two per airline). The airline also has to pay for training of all of these employees, including recurrent training.

    • @philg, I do not know but I assume that larger airliners pilots make more money. A-320 is in the same range as Boeing 737 Max. Once I took several flights on a Boeing 737 Max in a span of a week right before all Boeing 737 Max was grounded (was it 2019?). I am recalling that because on first flight there was more then little disturbance and the captain seemed to be a little disturbed on exit. In several weeks the planes were grounded due to programming error and now I think that the pilot likely saved my and others’ lives. It was on a regional flight. Since than I do not want the lowest bidder in the cockpit even on a regional flight
      But Airbus A380 holds 85,472 gallons of fuel, about $250,000 to fill up now or $350,000 in 2022.
      Boeing 747-8 has 63,034 gallon tank, $150,000 – $200,000 fill-up. Maybe it was for a turboprop. Quick search shows that there are variants of Boeing 747 with large fuel tanks. Initially I gave $500,000 estimate for refuel because some business jet rental company’s website that I happened to look at gave fuel price as $7/gallon.
      https://pilotteacher.com/how-much-fuel-do-airplanes-carry-with-15-examples/
      Do you know how much money airline management make on average? I do not know. But I guess one executive’s compensation could be no less then 10 air captains’ compensations. If you know please share.

    • If pilots are making a half-mill a year, you can bet that the phalanxes of Vice-presidents are all making at least that much (certainly anything that touches revenue)

  4. Wow, I thought (big jet) airline pilot was a 150-250k gig. I mean I want them to be “good” but holy smokes.
    I guess now that a big jet costs the same as an entire small midwestern town, the person in charge needs too be getting paid.

    • A retired delta pilot told me at one point in the 80’s the average pilot’s pay was higher than the average doctor’s pay.

    • A friend flies about 250 hours per year in a 9-passenger Cessna jet owned by a moderately rich guy. (Actually only about 200 hours in the past year because a problem that would have grounded the jet for a few days in 2019 took two months to fix (“supply chain”).) He lives in a city in the midwest where the median house price is just over $100,000 per year. Prior to starting a discussion with his employer regarding 2023 salary, he paid for a report from https://aircompcalculator.com/ and learned that the 50th percentile total comp for someone in his job in his low-cost location is about $250,000 per year.

      (He recognizes that he could make more flying for the airlines, but that would involve a lot more time away from his wife and the two of them are already financially comfortable by the standards of their community.)

  5. That’s incredible. Would give up ferrying R-44’s & just fly for the airlines.

  6. Operating commercial airplanes is expensive, and of course, the CxO at those airlines make a lot more $$ than pilots, yet those CxO find ways to insult their customers by asking them to pay $3 for a small bag of peanuts (costing them less than $0.20), charge fees to sit families together, charge fee for seat selection, and charge fee for carry on bags.

    Coming soon, they will ask you if you want to pay an extra fee to have the oxygen mask discharged during an emergency.

  7. I wonder how much of this is driven by scarcity? You can’t do any drugs or have any serious medical problems and be an airline pilot. That removes some giant percentage of Americans. (No obesity, no medically-necessary cannabis, no ADHD, no antidepressants, no diabetes, no excessive alcohol, no heart, vision, or neurological problems, etc etc) How many 50 year old Americans are fit to fly a plane for money?

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