Huge new contracts elevate pilot pay at American, Southwest to soaring heights
While being a commercial airline pilot isn’t a typical 9-5 job, it sure does bring home the big bucks.
Recent contracts have pushed the average pay for a captain flying on an airline’s largest aircraft to $348,252, according to aviation consultant Kit Darby. That’s a 31.2% average increase under the new contracts at major airlines. That’s been a big push over the last several years as airlines have upped their standard of pay across the industry to compete with other major carriers and draw in more talent.
Pilots were at a standstill for many years, awaiting a deal that had to make adjustments with pressures from the economy but also was put on pause by a global pandemic that made it difficult to get everyone at the bargaining table.
That was until pilots and their unions at American Airlines and Southwest Airlines both reached contract deals with their employers.
Since then, pilots have been given raises, increased benefits and other perks with an updated deal. These contracts will set the stage for the next four years and beyond, until it’s back to the bargaining table to consider new and updated provisions based on the economy, the market or just the changes in how the general public flies.
HOW PILOTS GET PAID
The bandwidth of pilots has gotten much more narrow over the years as airlines have come and gone. There are four major air carriers for U.S. domestic travel: American, Southwest, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines. All four achieved new pilot contracts within the last year.
Unionized pilots have always been on long-term contracts with their airlines, Darby said. American’s contract went into effect in Aug. 2023 and will expire in Aug. 2027. Southwest’s
contract went into effect this year and won’t expire until the end of 2028.
“Wages, on average, trend up and down with the economy if it’s a long-term change,” Darby said.
Dennis Tajer, pilot and spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, which represents the 15,000 pilots at American, said the profession after 9/11 had gone through a lot of dysfunction. It took a while for the industry to land back on its feet.
“It was another one of those pay your dues, and then you’ll get to the mainline because of the supply challenge pipeline that takes so many years to actually fill,” Tajer said. “You had an industry that had plenty of flying and wanted to do it, but didn’t have the people to do it.”
This year, American plans to hire 1,300 mainline pilots.
Aviation has seen a lot of change over the last several years. The airline industry faces an ongoing shortage of pilots, which will grow to a shortfall of nearly 80,000 by 2032 worldwide, according to Oliver Wyman.
Casey Murray, president of
the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association which represents over 10,000 pilots at Southwest, said today, it’s a different environment where pilots can make career moves from airline to airline.
“When you got a job with one (airline) that’s where you stayed,” Murray said. “It has been that way for literally decades and decades and decades,” Murray said. “It’s just economics. It’s been just a different time where the competition was fierce and so everybody was competing for the same very small pool of pilots.”
This year, Southwest has decided to slow on hiring pilots. Last year, Southwest added over 1,800 pilots to its crew and plans to hire “just south of 350,” not accounting for attrition since it’s early in the year. Southwest won’t be hiring for the final nine months of 2024.
HOW MUCH CAN A PILOT MAKE?
This year, under new contracts, major airline pilots will see an average increase of 6.5% in their pay, according to Darby.
At American, first-year pilots
are at a flat rate, Tajer said. A first-year, first officer at American would be paid $116 an hour in 2024 under the new contract. Depending on how often that new commercial airline pilot would fly, that could mean an average $114,180 salary starting out, Darby said.
On average a major airline first officer in their first year flying the smallest aircraft may bring home $98,616, according to Darby.
Pay scales are based on a variety of factors, including each year of service, the type of aircraft the pilot flies and the rank of the pilot.
“It’s a good job,” Tajer said. “Each year you’ll get a pay raise because of the length of service and that goes out to 12 years. If you stay as a first officer, you’ll get an annual increase for your longevity up to 12 years and then you’ll cap out your pay per flight hour.”
This year, a top-of-scale captain makes anywhere from $360.85 to $447.24 an hour depending on which plane in American’s fleet the highranking pilot is flying. Darby estimates this to be an average salary of $462,072 a year.