Which profession pays more? I understand airline pilots make around $20,000 yearly (hard to believe it’s that low) but what about train drivers?
Only very n00b airline pilots make that little. Pilots with enough experience who work for major carriers can start to earn six figures fairly quickly.
I imagine train engineers vary quite a bit, depending if they’re hauling freight or humans and what railroad they work for.
(Bolding mine.) Source: http://www.salary.com/careers/layouthtmls/crel_display_Cat10_Ser134_Par234.html
Source: http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresult_national_TR20000027.html
A co-pilot for a commuter airline might make $20,000 or less, according to reports on the crash last year. (The co-pilot had to live at home – in Seattle – and commute to the East Coast.)
Here’s a result from a quick search on pilot salaries: How Much Does a Pilot Get Paid? Cargo flight officers get paid less than FOs for ‘airlines’, but more than the co-pilot was getting paid for the commuter flight that crashed last year.
The commuter flight pilots are entry level pilots. If the business is the same as it was a decade or two ago - there’s a surplus of pilot wannabes and a shortage of good positions. They spend thousands getting trained. Then, the have to build up the hours of flight experience in progressively larger aircraft.
After getting acommercial pilot license, the pilot tries to get a paying job with it. Usully, this starts as a trainer, flying 2 or 4 seaters and traing others or doing commercial charters to rinky-dink locations. Pay sucks; you get paid for hours flown. With usually VFR (Visual Flight Rules) if the weather is bad for a stretch, you starve. Better to live at home or live off a spouse. Meanwhile, you build hours, get more certification (twin engine, night, floats, instrument flying).
Then you try to get in as a commuter pilot. You fly the 8 or 10 seaters, graduating to the smaller commuter planes. That’s what the pilots in the Buffalo crash were doing. These guys will do anything to get that first “real pilot” job. Any surprise they’ll fly halfway across the country each day, or avoid cancelling questionable flights?
One local airline I knew would hire the pilots and make them load the planes for about 6 months before they could get behind the controls. (Of course, anyone who went to the same church as the owners jumped the queue) Bonus - pilot wannabes would work for minimum wage whereas real ramp workers wanted $10/hr or $12/hr. Of course, they quit as soon as something better came along so turnover was horrendous, but the airline owners never figured out what their problem was right up until the day the Canadian Department of Transport shut them down permanently.
Being trained on any larger airliner is horrendously expensive, even using simulators; so you have to get on with a company which has those level of aircraft and is willing to train you on them. I.e. someone with small commuter planes and commuter jets, then work your way up.
Once you get into the jet leagues, you run into another competition - military pilots. They were trained by your tax dollars and have many many hours of experience on big airplanes. They were trained in a ergimen where the punishments for carelessness can be much more severe. Then there’s layoffs. More often than not, the job opportunities are shrinking rather than expanding, so anyone else who went before you is trying to get your job too.
If you happen to get a chronic condition, you’d better worry. Something as simple as a kidney stone could get you grounded/fired if you have to go badly at the wrong time, when the law says the cockpit stays locked. Plus, the top execs at the airlines collect their multimillion-dollar salaries by promising that instead of cash now, they will pay you a big pension when you are forced to take early retirement - then theyy renege on the deal with the collusion of the same US bankruptcy law that makes it impossible for you to shed your personal debt.
Railroad engineers, OTOH, are protected by good union contracts and over a century of US safety laws.