Pilot pay
Career earnings planner.
Published pay scales for 17 US airlines. Choose an airline, set your seat, aircraft, and upgrade path, and see every year of pay, profit sharing, and retirement growth to age 65. Rates reviewed July 2026; every figure can be edited if a new contract changes it.
About you
Years already completed set your pay-scale longevity. Mandatory Part 121 retirement is age 65.
Your flying plan
Delta Air Lines guarantee is 65 hours; 83 is a typical line-holder credit.
Outlook
Published pay plus the airline's typical profit sharing and an 8% investment return.
Assumptions
Employee pool: 10% of adjusted annual profit through $2.5B and 20% above $2.5B. Payouts: 5.6% (2023), 10.4% (2024), and 8.9% (2025) of eligible earnings.
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Career airline earnings
$18.0M
Cash compensation over 35 years
Employer retirement contributions
$3.23M
Deposited by the airline, IRS caps applied
Balance at retirement
$12.9M
Contributions invested monthly
Annual compensation path
Click the chart or drag the career slider to inspect a year.
Explore the career
Career year 9 of 35
Year and age
2034 · age 39
Seat and aircraft
CA · 717
Hourly rate
$400.15/hr
Annual cash
$434,414
Retirement balance
$654K
How this year adds up
$557,886 total value
Career path
Seat and aircraft over time.
First officer
2026–2030 · 717
Captain
2031–2060 · 717
What could change the result
Three checks computed from your selected path.
If the captain upgrade is two years later
-$327K
Change in career earnings and contributions
If you start one year later
-$471K
One fewer top-of-scale year before age 65
Profit sharing, low vs high
$1.75M
Career spread between the two scenarios
Data confidence
Reviewed July 2026Pay table
Jan 2026
Retirement
18% employer contribution
Source
Full published 2026 PWA tables (Jan 2026 step), all 12 longevity years and all fleet bands; contract amendable Dec 2026.
Retirement detail
18% direct company 401(k) contribution effective 1 Jan 2026 (17% before), no match required. Amounts over the IRS 415(c) cap are paid as cash or MBCBP accrual.
Known limits
- Excludes international overrides ($6.50/hr CA, $4.50/hr FO), per diem, and premium pay.
- Contract amendable Dec 2026 with Section 6 negotiations open; a successor agreement would raise these rates.
How it works
Gross earnings use the selected airline's published pay table, aircraft, seat, monthly credit, and profit-sharing assumption. A pilot advances one pay year per year at the airline until the table's published maximum. Known contractual scale steps apply on their effective dates; after the last published step, the selected annual raise applies. Employer retirement contributions are applied to base pay plus profit sharing, capped at the projected IRS 415(c) limit ($72,000 for 2026, grown 2.5% per year); amounts above the cap count as cash. Contributions are invested monthly at the selected return. Results are projected dollars, not adjusted for inflation or taxes. For salary-based carriers the planner uses the published annual salary for each year of service at a fixed credit equivalent, and the monthly-credit input does not apply.
Excluded: per diem, premium and override pay, international pay, sign-on and retention bonuses, employee 401(k) matches requiring deferrals beyond the figures shown, and the FedEx and UPS defined-benefit pensions. Estimates only, not financial advice. Independent. Not affiliated with any airline.