How mcuh does Air Canada Pilot make?
According to an insider at Air Canada, Air Canada has reached an agreement with the pilots' association at the last minute before the strike. Although the agreement still needs to be approved by the union, it will not deviate much from the final version. This article uses this to reveal the income level of Canadian pilots for your reference.
According to the document, Air Canada will gradually increase pilots' wages in the next three years. This article is calculated based on the income that will take effect in September 2025. The figure below shows the hourly rate of Air Canada pilots. Each pilot has a minimum flight time guarantee of 900 hours per year, so we will multiply the hourly rate by 900 as the annual income estimate of the pilot.
The hourly rate of a newly hired first officer in the first year is 90.98 Canadian dollars, and the annual income is 81,882 Canadian dollars(60653 USD), Considering that it takes at least 5 years and thousands of hours of flight experience from graduate from flight school to join Air Canada, this income is not reasonable even after the salary increase. However, as the service time increases, the salary of the first officer will increase significantly in the third and fifth years, to 118,521 Canadian dollars(87,793 USD) and 152,379 Canadian dollars(112,873 USD) per year. After that, it will gradually increase slowly to 181,683 Canadian dollars(134,580 USD) in the tenth year of service. According to Canada's current price level, the first officer of Air Canada will have to serve for 5 years before the income can support a decent life. There will be a difficult time before that.
Compared with the first officer, the captain's income is much better. The annual salary of the newly hired captain in the first year is as high as 261,360 Canadian dollars(193,600 USD), and then it will increase slowly every year to 286,110 Canadian dollars(211,933 USD) in the tenth year of service. The salary growth of the captain is different from that of the first officer. There is no sharp increase in the third and fifth years, but a slow growth process. If the captain wants to get a higher salary, he or she must find a way to fly a wide-body aircraft such as the Boeing 777, with an annual income from 326,268 Canadian dollars(241,680 USD) in the first year to 360,126 Canadian dollars(266,760 USD).
Overall, Air Canada's salary for captains is quite attractive. For first officer, especially those who joined in the past few years, the salary is not satisfactory. However, after doing reserch, this seems to be a common practice among all Canadian airlines, not only happen in Air Canada. Hopefully that all pilots in Canada can get through the difficult period in the begining, and get a salary that can support a decent life while enjoying the joy of flying.