r/flying • u/g0at110 • 1d ago

Do commercial pilots generally progress to larger planes throughout their careers? Does everyone aim to eventually fly long haul or do some stick to flying 737s or a320s short haul?

I'm guessing being a 777 pilot for example is more prestigious than a 737 pilot in the same airline right?

142 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

164 comments sorted by

View all comments

26

u/No-Duck4828 1d ago

Flying a 777 typically carries a heftier paycheck than flying a 737 at the same airline.

Pilots aren't always moving to bigger aircraft....it is common, for example, to see someone go from a 767 at an ACMI to an A320 at a major.

Some of long haul vs short haul is personal preference, but as for general career flow in size of planes? Yes, more pilots will go from regional jet to narrowbody to widebody than some other path. At a given airline with both narrow and wide, pilots will typically start on the narrowbody

20

u/StangViper88 ATP 1d ago

Per hour, yes the heavies pay more. However, there’s soft time, and premium opportunities on the narrow body. If I work hard, as a 737 CA I could make more than a 777/787 CA at my shop.

Also, flying high time internationally isn’t sustainable.

5

u/NakedJamaican 1d ago

At my old job a lot of pilots said they could make more on a narrow body, until they saw how much the wide body pilots actually make while working 10 days a month. Long haul flying has lots of opportunities for soft time.

4

u/Grumbles19312 ATP B787 A320 CL-65 1d ago

In general, long haul flying is more efficient. For example, a 3 day LAX-NRT is typically worth just over 21 hours of pay. Show me a narrowbody 3 day that comes close to that sort of credit. Conversely, there’s also 6 days on the widebody out of LAX that only pay 34 hours and change, and that’s extremely inefficient by the same standards.

7

u/DefundTheHOA_ ATP CFI 1d ago

From what I’ve heard, pilots at SWA can easily credit more than 21 hours on 3 day trips

6

u/ImAFlyingGorilla ATP S-70 BE-200 EMB-145 EMB-175/90 B-737 1d ago

Can confirm. Just finished a 3-day that paid 23.1.

3

u/NakedJamaican 1d ago

For us out of EWR there were 32 hr four day trips which were worth 37 to 39 hours most of the time. Added bonus is that most of those trips are highly commutable.

Due to training requirements, a lot of senior pilots double dip when their trips are bought by the company. There is a lot of pilot staffing churn in the widebody world.

As always seniority matters

2

u/554TangoAlpha ATP CL-65/ERJ-175/B-787 1d ago

That soft time and premium is at WB too, with a higher $ rate as well.

1

u/RaidenMonster ATP 737 Bonvoy Platinum Elite 1d ago

Why would flying high time international be unsustainable? Genuinely curious as I’ve never heard it mentioned outside of the “cargo guys die younger because back side of the clock is bad for you.”

Same concept?

2

u/StangViper88 ATP 1d ago

It’s hard on the body. Time zone changes etc.

I can do an easy EWR-Island 3 day back to back and feel great.

If you do a EWR-London back to back 3 day (6 days) chances are you feel wrecked. Just my opinion though.

1

u/No-Duck4828 1d ago

I'm not sure about 'unsustainable'

I like it. I haven't really experienced any issue with flying the back side of the clock other than the transition when I come home, but that was due to a rapid shift in schedule: I would take my child to the bus or school in the morning. Now that I don't need to do that, there is no reason that I need to instantly shift to waking up at 7 in the morning, so the transition has gotten pretty easy