...until flow to American at 6 years. At American, 1st year FO = $97K, 2nd year = $140K and on up. American has one of the highest pay scales, I think United is around the same. There are pay scales on APC, it's roughly the hourly rate x 1000 for your annual salary.
Those numbers are a little high, I think it would be more accurate and conservative to say (at least at AA) that pay would be:
1st year: $77.29 (Group II pay Jan16) x 76 (Short call guarantee) x 12 months = $70,488.48 plus $11,278 (16% 401k contribution)
2nd year: $119.28 (Group II pay Jan17) x 76 (Short call guarantee) x 12 months = $108,783 plus $17,405 (16% 401k contribution)
3rd year: $143.76 (Group II pay Jan18) x 76 (Short call guarantee) x 12 months = $131,109 plus $20,977 (16% 401k contribution)
Extra pays like per diem and international override depending on bid status (airframe, base, domestic/international) may net you between $0-$1000 extra a month including the per diem (Time Away From Base, TAFB). How much you fly on reserve varies greatly by time of year, airframe and manning, but during my first year on the 7576 I had 6 week periods where I didn't fly and didn't make any extra pay. Switching airframes for instance has opened up other opportunities, such as over guarantee (flying on days off) and premium pay (again flying on days off when company burnt through all available reserve pilots). Of those two, you can't really bank or count on them at AA. We have probably the worst system in place for making extra money, hopefully we can get our shit together and adopt a better system like Delta with the next contract, but I am not holding my breath on that.
It took me 18 months to become a line holder (and I just got pushed back in seniority and couldn't hold it for the month of September dang it
), then you have the flexibility of flying more hours and the "hourly rate x 1000" becomes more applicable. Average monthly line values at AA for 737/320 range between 80-83 hours. After you get your line you can drop/trade/pickup trips to adjust. You have some high time guys that fly 120 or so, but they have the seniority to take advantage of the system and can cherry pick dead head trips and or trips with high pay and credit (one leg of flying 1.3 but paid 5 hours for example). Other items like selling back vacation can also impact the pay. Here is an example of what gaining a little bit of seniority and having a busy summer where crew skeds needs pilots and premium trips are available:
$135.51 (Group II yr 3) x 116 hours (76 SC guarantee plus 30 hours premium and 10 hours vacation sold back) + $850 TAFB/Override = $16,569 monthly gross
I think my peers at the other majors with better premium pay systems are doing much better than that. But it still serves as an example of how you can work the system. When I look at the schedules of REALLY senior guys, or fly with high time senior Captains, it's amazing how they can work the system and make insane amounts of money. A brand new 787 CA I spoke with at recurrent training had his best pay month ever at AA and grossed over $30k for the month.
Going into my second year I have consistently averaged above SC guarantee, and when I held a line for three months I averaged 95-101 hours paid each of those months. Some of that is I chose to fly more hours and also I lived in base and could pick up last minute premium trips. Over summer I switched back to short call to take advantage of premium and that I could get my top SC pick of schedules where I got all the weekends off. Anyways, just an example of how you can change your income within the existing system, but it may take 6 months to a year to gain sufficient seniority to take advantage of it.
Disclaimer, we are getting PBS here at AA and will be fully transitioned over beginning of 2017, theoretically the system doesn't require as much reserve manning so it may accelerate the timeline that it takes for you to gain enough seniority to hold a line (pure speculation on my part, and I am curious to see the results of the PBS runs in my bid status at other bases).
The other end of the spectrum of course guys that fly the bare minimum or are also actively drilling with a reserve unit and have to juggle their schedule. Anyways, I would say it is more conservative to expect that you would get paid guarantee for the respective airline's reserve category that you would start off in (though I understand that may not apply at SWA/JETBLUE and others).
I didn't include profit sharing, since honestly I think that is a moving target and while I have seen the math on the union side showing how to calculate it, I wouldn't include it in any conservative estimate on projected earnings.
As for the flow, well, I don't have any experience with that, nor advice to give. But we at AA are getting our steady group of pilots flowing to us each month, so it is happening. Fortunately for off the street hires, that is picking up now that all the furlough recalls are completing in September. So we should see quite a few more off the street showing up at AA.
