BC minimum wage to reach $15.20, meaning that BC flight instructors will soon make less than a minimum wage employee

[CdnPilotsalary]

With class 3 and 4 flight instructors making $25-30 per hour on the west coast, flight instructors will soon be making less than a full-time minimum wage employee.
Don't forget to buy your instructor lunch once in a while, everyone.

Math below:
FT minimum wage employee: $15.20/hr * 40 hr/wk * 52 wk = $31,616 p.a.
Flight instructor, worst case: $25.00/hr * 800 hours / yr = $20,000 p.a.
Flight instructor, best case: $30.00/hr * 1000 hours / yr = $30,000 p.a.
I didn't include ground briefing pay as it's usually an insignificant amount.

Tough luck for those on the best coast.

[CdnPilotsalary]

Also on the list of pilots making less than minimum wage, is the GGN 1900 FO, with a starting salary of $29,500 p.a. according to this thread: viewtopic.php?f=46&t=122286

[Panama Jack]

". . . but BC is The Best Place on Earth to live!"

[upnatem]

If an instructor is only getting 800 to 1000 hrs per yr perhaps they should look at working at a busier school. Or a school that doesn't overhire number of instructors.

Of course there is no guaranteed hours due weather and whatnot, but that's fairly low yearly numbers.

[SuperchargedRS]

If an instructor is only getting 800 to 1000 hrs per yr perhaps they should look at working at a busier school. Or a school that doesn't overhire number of instructors.

Of course there is no guaranteed hours due weather and whatnot, but that's fairly low yearly numbers.

Personally I wouldn't use a Instructor that's logging over 1k a year, to be a good instructor takes a bit out of you, and I question the quality of any instructor who considers 1k a year not flying enough.

Also if you're not logging a hour or so of ground per flight, you're not doing a very good job with the student or in business.

Don't think the issue is the hours, think it's what they are getting paid per hour

[Diadem]

For every hour of flying I do, I do another hour or so of work of various kinds, so if I fly 80 hours per month that's 160 hours of work, i.e. a normal job. I would expect it would be pretty similar for an instructor, if not moreso in terms of briefings, maintaining PTRs, chatting up potential customers, etc. If instructors have to fly more than 1000 hours per year and work more than 2000 hours per year just to break $30000, then maybe there's a reason no one wants to do it anymore. The problem isn't how busy the schools are.

[CdnPilotsalary]

If an instructor is only getting 800 to 1000 hrs per yr perhaps they should look at working at a busier school. Or a school that doesn't overhire number of instructors.

Of course there is no guaranteed hours due weather and whatnot, but that's fairly low yearly numbers.

It would be very unlikely for a BC instructor to log over 1000 hours per year. The only good months are May-Sept. Dec-Jan, forget about it.

[CdnPilotsalary]

Personally I wouldn't use a Instructor that's logging over 1k a year, to be a good instructor takes a bit out of you, and I question the quality of any instructor who considers 1k a year not flying enough.

Also if you're not logging a hour or so of ground per flight, you're not doing a very good job with the student or in business.

Don't think the issue is the hours, think it's what they are getting paid per hour

Usually, instructors get paid about 0.2 ground pay (at a significantly reduced rate) per lesson. Doesn't add up to much.

[C.W.E.]

It is obvious that flight instructors are paid very little for flying instruction.

The question should be why?

[ant_321]

When I instructed on the east coast in 2010-11 I was making $25/hr and made $12000 in a year (punching 80+ hrs a week, waiting for good wx). The west coast probably gets more vfr days than the east coast but I think it would be difficult to bill anywhere near 1000 hrs.

[CdnPilotsalary]

When I instructed on the east coast in 2010-11 I was making $25/hr and made $12000 in a year (punching 80+ hrs a week, waiting for good wx). The west coast probably gets more vfr days than the east coast but I think it would be difficult to bill anywhere near 1000 hrs.

Wow, $12,000? So an average duty pay of a little over $3 an hour?
How did you survive? Did you work another job?

[SuperchargedRS]

Personally I wouldn't use a Instructor that's logging over 1k a year, to be a good instructor takes a bit out of you, and I question the quality of any instructor who considers 1k a year not flying enough.

Also if you're not logging a hour or so of ground per flight, you're not doing a very good job with the student or in business.

Don't think the issue is the hours, think it's what they are getting paid per hour

Usually, instructors get paid about 0.2 ground pay (at a significantly reduced rate) per lesson. Doesn't add up to much.

Don't work for janky operators.

I started at like 35hr, billed regardless if I was in the air or the ground, this was a side job.

Next instructor gig was $25hr flight or air, got a 300ish spif for every student check ride pass, but my nice on airport house (single bedroom) was free complete with all utilities.

After that it was freelance $50hr cash or barter, same on the ground.

If they are paying you less for ground, or you're not spending about .5 pre and .5 post flight, you ain't doing it right.

[CpnCrunch]

If they are paying you less for ground, or you're not spending about .5 pre and .5 post flight, you ain't doing it right.

0.5 pre and post for every flight is overkill.

[SuperchargedRS]

If you're going to quote me do it properly at least.

ABOUT .5 was what I said.

And pre solo, between meet and greet, pre and post flight, and ground ops, logbook, see ya next time, etc, it's close to another billable hour all in.

[ant_321]

When I instructed on the east coast in 2010-11 I was making $25/hr and made $12000 in a year (punching 80+ hrs a week, waiting for good wx). The west coast probably gets more vfr days than the east coast but I think it would be difficult to bill anywhere near 1000 hrs.

Wow, $12,000? So an average duty pay of a little over $3 an hour?
How did you survive? Did you work another job?

3 guys in a 2 bedroom apartment, a side job (didn't sleep much during that year) and about $4k in leftover student loan money. Haha. When I got myself a turboprop job making $26k I felt rich.

[C.W.E.]

If they are paying you less for ground, or you're not spending about .5 pre and .5 post flight, you ain't doing it right.

If you need that much ground instruction time you are not doing the flying part right....in my opinion of course.

[SuperchargedRS]

If you're not giving that much ground you're not doing the flight instructor part right.

Look at aerobatics, airline, military, etc, much more time talking about what you're going to be doing and analyzing what you did than stick time, also it makes the stick time (the expensive part) yield more of a bang for your buck.

If you're not doing much work with your student outside of the airplane, you're short changing your student as well as your wallet. Also you're not really a instructor, just crash preventer who watches the Hobbs tick by for that "great" airline job.

[CpnCrunch]

If you're not giving that much ground you're not doing the flight instructor part right.

Look at aerobatics, airline, military, etc, much more time talking about what you're going to be doing and analyzing what you did than stick time, also it makes the stick time (the expensive part) yield more of a bang for your buck.

If you're not doing much work with your student outside of the airplane, you're short changing your student as well as your wallet. Also you're not really a instructor, just crash preventer who watches the Hobbs tick by for that "great" airline job.

Speaking for myself, I think I got an average of about 0.4 to 0.5 of ground time per 1.5hr in the air. I was prepared for the lesson, so there was no need for a huge amount of ground time. The only exception was pre-CPL flight test prep.

To be honest I get a little pissed off at paying $50+/hr for lots of ground time with a 300hr instructor who is lacking knowledge. That's not to say that all 300hr instructors are useless, but there is a range of quality out there.

[Shady McSly]

It's all becoming clear...

[C.W.E.]

I guess we just teach differently Supercharged, which is perfectly O.K. as teaching is a discipline that varies from person to person.

Ground briefing in the initial training for the issuance of a PPL will of course take more time than ground briefing once the student has grasped the basics and understands said basics.

But teaching PPL's in a flight school is for those beginning their flying career to get a job flying commercially and I did not stay in that part of teaching for very long.

However I taught advanced flying for decades and based my rates on flight time, I did not charge for any pre. or post flight time.

By the way my post flight briefing was mostly using the video record of the flight to point out where any mistakes had started and how to correct them.

If I was just a crash preventer and not a real flight instructor my clients didn't seem to mind because all my new clients were by referral from those I had crash prevented with.

And I did not short change my wallet because I charged either 250.00 Euro per flight hour or $250.00 USD per. hour depending where I was crash preventing.