Somewhere between a first-year instructor's hourly rate and $500,000, which is the least useful sentence we will write today. Here is the whole ladder, rung by rung, from the pay ranges employers actually print.
By WingmanPro Research · Published August 28, 2026
The figures in this article come from the September 2026 WingmanPro salary report, a snapshot of 32,138 jobs posted on WingmanPro on August 27, 2026. Among pilot listings that quote an annual salary, the median is $155,000. That single number hides a ladder, and the ladder is the interesting part.
Listings hunting for a captain outnumber listings hunting for a first officer 2.6 to 1. The industry is not short of pilots; it is short of pilots who can sign for the airplane, and it is paying a $100,250 premium for the fourth stripe. That premium is structural. The airline hiring wave of 2021 through 2023 pulled thousands of experienced pilots out of charter, corporate and instructing, and those operators are still paying to rebuild the top of their rosters.
| Aircraft family | Median posted salary | Captain listings |
|---|---|---|
| Gulfstream | $275,000 | 154 |
| Bombardier (Global, Challenger) | $250,000 | 122 |
| Dassault Falcon | $235,000 | 40 |
| Hawker | $172,500 | 21 |
| Embraer | $170,775 | 30 |
| Cessna Citation | $169,585 | 80 |
| Pilatus | $150,000 | 48 |
| Beechcraft King Air | $100,000 | 40 |
The gap between the top and bottom of that table is $175,000 a year for what is nominally the same job title. Nobody economizes on the person flying the $75 million jet. Category-wide, jet listings post a median of $175,000, turboprops $104,573 and helicopters $90,925, a rotor discount we have complained about before and will complain about again.
One more multiplier: currency in the airplane. Pilot listings that require time in type post a median of $222,000, against $150,000 for listings without the requirement. Walking in the door already trained is worth tens of thousands of dollars a year in this market.
| Operation | Median posted pay | Listings with pay |
|---|---|---|
| Charter (Part 135) | $149,500 | 627 |
| Corporate (Part 91) | $145,000 | 2,039 |
| Flight instruction | $104,564 | 594 |
| Airline (Part 121) | $95,132 | 1,744 |
Two warnings before you quote that table at a dinner party. The airline figure covers every role airlines post, ground staff included, so it is not a pilot-to-pilot comparison. And an airline career can still win on lifetime earnings once seniority, widebody upgrades and retirement contributions compound. What the table shows is who is bidding hardest for walk-in talent today, and the answer is business aviation, because charter and corporate operators recruit from the same experienced-pilot pool the airlines drained and have no seniority list to promise anyone.
Yes. The median pilot listing posts $155,000 against $132,000 for aviation as a whole, and the ceiling is high: captain listings on large-cabin business jets routinely post over $250,000.
Senior captains on ultra-long-range business jets, plus the most senior widebody airline captains. On the posted market right now: a G700 lead captain role at $385,000 to $435,000 and a G550 captain seat at $500,000.
As long as it takes to become a captain someone trusts with a jet. The median captain listing posts $212,750. The fast route is business aviation with a type rating; listings requiring time in type post a $222,000 median.
The median first officer listing posts $112,500, so yes, on paper. The spread is wide: fleet and operator matter far more than the title, and hourly-quoted regional pay annualizes optimistically.
All figures are medians of posted pay ranges from the September 2026 report snapshot of jobs posted on WingmanPro (August 27, 2026), annualized at 2,080 hours, 260 days, 52 weeks or 12 months, midpoint of each range, outliers excluded below $20,000 and above $2,000,000 annualized. Medians, not averages, so one Gulfstream listing cannot drag a number. The listings behind every figure are live and searchable on the board.