Who makes the most money in aviation?

Enemy Ace · **Posted:** Tue Aug 25, 2009 11:05 am

OK, now that the aviation world has fundamentally changed, what are the highest paid Aviation Jobs out there?
For the purposes of this thread, let's confine it to three catagories:
Pilots: flying what for who, for how much? Is the 747 Captain still king or is the G550 corporate guy?
A&P's: where , working on what? do avionics guys make the most? sheetmetal? airlines or boutique resto shop guys?
Controllers: government or contract companies?
Quite a few people have posted about how to get jobs in aviation, maybe this will be interesting reading...Fire away!

k5083 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 25, 2009 11:35 am

Lobbyist.

August

Enemy Ace · **Posted:** Tue Aug 25, 2009 11:56 am

c'mon August. stick to the catagories. we really don't want to get started with the Lawyer jokes. :axe:

snj-5 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 25, 2009 1:10 pm

Aviation fuel sales (buy it for $3/gallon or less, sell it for $5/gallon or more). :lol:

Bela P. Havasreti

retroaviation · **Posted:** Tue Aug 25, 2009 1:14 pm

Airline exectutive.

muddyboots · **Posted:** Tue Aug 25, 2009 3:07 pm

you guys suck!

This is actually sort of interesting to me. Any real answers?

warbird1 · **Joined:** Fri Sep 21, 2007 6:25 pm **Posts:** 2760

I don't know if it's still true, but as of a few years ago, FedEx 747 Captains were supposedly the highest paid commercial pilots in the world. They could easily make over 400K a year. I believe the UPS Captains are right up there as well.

A Fed Ex 747 pilot once told me that each time one of their Fed Ex 747's cross the Pacific and fly, let's say, from San Francisco to Japan, Fed Ex makes in excess of $ 6 Million net profit. At those kind of profits, it's no wonder that Fed Ex pays its pilots so well!

the330thbg · **Joined:** Wed Nov 14, 2007 3:06 pm **Posts:** 2713

So pound for pound.., the airlines should charge passengers by weight instead of on a per ticket basis..

That way they could see some profitability!!!!!

Is that what you are saying? :shock:

Matt Gunsch · **Posted:** Tue Aug 25, 2009 9:49 pm

aviation lawyers

RyanShort1 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:06 pm

snj-5 wrote:

Aviation fuel sales (buy it for $3/gallon or less, sell it for $5/gallon or more). :lol:

Bela P. Havasreti

I don't think that's actually that good of a deal unless you do a whole lot of volume. A lot of the FBO's are paying lots of rent to the airport owners, and have overhead like line guys (like I used to be) who take up a significant portion of the profits. We don't make that much, but they have to pay you to be there anyway whether or not an aircraft shows up in order to have good service. In the rest of the business world a lot of retailers need to have a 50-60% markup in order to do well.
I think if you want to do well in aviation - you have to be the best AND most efficient at what you do, and have a good reputation, and have good visibility.

Ryan

snj-5 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:31 pm

I can appreciate all that. We were joking (I thought!).

Still makes you wonder how some FBOs can sell avgas for around
$3.50 right now while others are still charging over $5/gallon.... :shock:

No doubt, some FBOs have more overhead than others I suppose....

Bela P. Havasreti

A2C · **Posted:** Tue Aug 25, 2009 11:12 pm

Boeing.

CAPFlyer · **Posted:** Wed Aug 26, 2009 12:19 pm

warbird1 wrote:

I don't know if it's still true, but as of a few years ago, FedEx 747 Captains were supposedly the highest paid commercial pilots in the world. They could easily make over 400K a year. I believe the UPS Captains are right up there as well.

A Fed Ex 747 pilot once told me that each time one of their Fed Ex 747's cross the Pacific and fly, let's say, from San Francisco to Japan, Fed Ex makes in excess of $ 6 Million net profit. At those kind of profits, it's no wonder that Fed Ex pays its pilots so well!

FedEx hasn't flown 747's in decades. Their MD-11 pilots are the highest paid.

A good source for pilot pay rates is here - http://www.willflyforfood.com/airline-pilot-salary/

CAPFlyer · **Posted:** Wed Aug 26, 2009 12:20 pm

CAPFlyer wrote:

warbird1 wrote:

I don't know if it's still true, but as of a few years ago, FedEx 747 Captains were supposedly the highest paid commercial pilots in the world. They could easily make over 400K a year. I believe the UPS Captains are right up there as well.

A Fed Ex 747 pilot once told me that each time one of their Fed Ex 747's cross the Pacific and fly, let's say, from San Francisco to Japan, Fed Ex makes in excess of $ 6 Million net profit. At those kind of profits, it's no wonder that Fed Ex pays its pilots so well!

FedEx hasn't flown 747's in decades. In fact, they only have 2 pay scales - 727/757 or WideBody.

A good source for pilot pay rates is here - http://www.willflyforfood.com/airline-pilot-salary/

CAPFlyer · **Posted:** Wed Aug 26, 2009 12:22 pm

Ehh.. forgot you can't edit..

Anyway, here's another site with airline profiles and pay rate information -

http://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/airlines.html

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