If you’ve ever spent your morning commute daydreaming about starting afresh with your career, this feature is for you. Each Monday, the Money blog speaks to someone from a different profession to discover what it’s really like. This week we chat to Martin Drake, a retired British Airways Boeing 747 captain and representative of the British Airline Pilots’ Association.
Starting salaries are often not as generous as people imagine… with new pilots generally receiving £30,000 to £40,000 a year. If you go on to become a long-haul captain, you would be earning between £125,000 and £200,000, with senior captains on certain airlines making over £200,000. It can be difficult to quantify as pilot salaries often depend on the type of aircraft, and routes flown and the airline you work for.
There are no specific loans to fund training, like student loans… There are a handful of airline-funded training schemes, but aspiring pilots largely need to fund their own training and will often have to repay any money they’ve borrowed once they start work.
Don’t wait, get on the pension ladder ASAP… Retirement comes round quicker than anyone expects.
I got four weeks’ holiday split equally between summer and winter periods… As we worked 365 days a year, my company gave us an extra two weeks as time off in lieu for weekends and public holidays. Pilots’ working hours are governed by legislation and cover the hours on duty, hours flying and a rest period. This takes into account start time, number of flights, number of time zones crossed and previous rest period, to mention a few. In terms of time in the air, pilots cannot fly for more than 100 hours in a 28-day period.
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The biggest change I have seen in my time in the industry has been… deregulation of airspace. At the start of my career, there were more defined routes and set airlines that flew them. Now there are far more routes and more airlines that cover them. While…
