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Pilot for major airline shares incredible amount of money he makes every flight

Home> Lifestyle> Travel

Updated 16:28 19 Jun 2025 GMT+1Published 16:15 19 Jun 2025 GMT+1

Pilot for major airline shares incredible amount of money he makes every flight

He can make different amounts depending on the routes he flies

Joe Harker

Joe Harker

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A pilot has explained how much money he makes an hour, and how much more he could earn if he became a captain.

If you want a job where you get to sit down a lot but are also paid the big bucks, then you'll probably want to go into aviation, or possibly finance.

Flying planes for a living sounds pretty fun, albeit difficult, and YouTubing pilot Garrett Ray provided his viewers with a handy breakdown of the kind of money he was getting paid to zip around the skies for a living with hundreds of souls depending on his skills.

Given how big of a job it is, you'd very much hope the buttocks plonked into the pilot seat belonged to an individual who knew what they were doing and were being handsomely compensated for it.

How much does a pilot make per hour?

He makes his living as a first officer on board a 737 (Christian Kaspar-Bartke - UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
He makes his living as a first officer on board a 737 (Christian Kaspar-Bartke - UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

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Being an airline pilot saddles you with a lot of responsibility but it also seems like a pretty lucrative career if you can learn to consistently wrestle a giant metal bee full of people safely down to the ground.

Garrett, a first officer, explained that he was paid $213.87 (£159.19) an hour, though of course he could only spend so much time in the cockpit, and can't hop from aircraft to aircraft without interruption.

He said that all pilots had to deal with 'time away from base' and that he preferred doing some routes to others because of how much time he spent 'away from base'.

How much does a pilot get paid per flight?

Garrett explained that when he was working he could take a route from New York LaGuardia to Dallas Fort Worth 'deadheading', which is where a pilot is on board a plane but not flying it so they can get to their next job.

Then he flew from Dallas back to LaGuardia, which gave him seven hours and 18 minutes in the cockpit along with nine hours and six minutes 'time away from base'.

So all in all he was paid $1,556 (£1158.17) for that job, saying it was a 'phenomenal' route to fly.

Comparing it to a different flight he might take from JFK Airport, New York, to Phoenix, Arizona with an overnight stop which gave him a whopping 40 hours 'time away from base' but just over 10 hours of actually flying time.

He said that route didn't give him the 'best bang for the buck'.

You'd hope the people who fly planes were paid well (YouTube/flywithgarratt)
You'd hope the people who fly planes were paid well (YouTube/flywithgarratt)

How much he could make as captain

Garrett's explanation that some routes were more lucrative than others is not too dissimilar to the experiences other workers in the travel sector have found.

A cruise ship worker explained that certain routes tended to pay more than others because they'd make more on commission and that he'd actually made more money in a junior position because of the location.

Garrett explained in another video that if he became a captain he could be earning a lot more money.

He said if he was a captain then a pilot of his experience could be making $338.95 (£252) an hour, quite a considerable pay rise.

In a month where he worked 80 hours as a first officer, he calculated he made around $17,109 (£12,734.70), but if he was a captain he could be earning $27,116 (£20,183.18) a month.

Not a bad gig, piloting.

Featured Image Credit: youtube/flywithgarratt

Topics: Travel, Jobs, Money

Joe Harker
Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

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@MrJoeHarker

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