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In the UK and US, they’re to be found in the Navy and Army as well as the Air Force.Ī careers site calculates that the average salary for a UK helicopter pilot is £50,000, while a US pilot earns $77, 000. Helicopter pilots are also employed by military forces. Transporting workers and equipment to offshore oil rigs. Landing on the roofs of hotels and company buildings, transporting business people around countries and cities.įlying news crews or rescue workers to the site of a crime or disaster. Helicopters can land in places too small and awkward for fixed-wing planes to reach, so pilots can find themselves:įlying tourists or even film crews to remote, hard to access areas.įlying holidaymakers to exotic locations. The average salary for a commercial pilot in India is around ₹4,687,900 ($64,630), with Captains earning up to ₹6,610,000 ($ 91,130) a year. This will depend on how the demand for travel recovers and changes as the world emerges from the pandemic. However, these high salaries may come down. Even First Officers were paid $100,000+ a year. That meant some companies, pre-pandemic, were offering experienced long-haul Captains salaries as high as $500,000 a year. What about Asia? FlightDeckFriend says that in recent years, pilots have been in very high demand. At these companies, as a highly-experienced Captain, they’ll be paid between £/€150,000 – £/€250,000 a year. But if they want the ‘big bucks’, they’ll need to progress to long-haul flights at larger airlines such as British Airways, KLM/Air France or Lufthansa. By moving to short-haul low-cost airlines like Ryanair, EasyJet and Wizz Air, though, they can earn up to £/€80,000 a year as a First Officer, or up to £/€150,000 as a short-haul Captain. In the UK and Europe, regional pilots might start on as little as £/€20,000 a year. The NBAA mentions that on average chief pilots earn $132,895, co-pilots earn $82,502 and flight attendants earn $85,441. These companies pay their long-haul Captains up to $350,000 inclusive of allowances and bonuses.
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However, if they continue training and climbing the career ladder, they can move to larger companies such as Delta or American Airlines. FlightDeckFriend says they'll typically earn $20,000 – $40,000 a year. In the US, many commercial pilots start their career working for small, regional airlines. An aviation career specialist site gives an idea of this salary range: while long-haul Captains may get paid up to $300,000 (£200,000), Junior First Officers might only be paid $25,000 (£20,000). A commercial pilot salary depends on qualifications, experience, rank, flight type, country, and the airline they work for.
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They wonder less about military pilot earnings or how much a private pilot salary is!Ĭommercial pilots have the advantage of usually knowing, well in advance, where they’re flying to and when. This makes people curious about their real-life earnings and careers. Normally, when people ask about pilot’s salaries they’re usually wondering: How much is an airline pilot salary? When commercial pilots are featured in films, they're shown with glamorous lifestyles and plenty of cash. What is the average salary of an airline pilot? We’ve looked at the average pilot salary in several of the most common career paths a pilot can take. Pilots can work for commercial airlines, freight businesses, private jet companies, the military, or the tourism, medical or charity sectors. Pay very much depends on the type of career a pilot chooses and their qualifications.
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There’s no simple answer to this question because there is no average pilot salary. So, what is the salary of a pilot? How Much is the Salary of a Pilot? However, there’s a wide variety of piloting careers, from flying small crop-dusters to captaining long-haul flights for major airlines. Being a pilot is seen as glamorous and well-paid, mainly based on media images of handsome, uniformed airline captains striding through airports.
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