Pilots’ retention failing despite rising salaries

Data from a 2,437 pilot survey shows pay rising across regions, but mobility surging faster, forcing airlines to rethink retention beyond salary

By Nathan Baker

The pilot labour market has entered a phase where salary benchmarking is no longer a sufficient proxy for retention risk.

The most revealing signal is not the headline pay band for a Captain on a B777 or an A320, but the widening gap between what operators pay and how willing pilots remain to move.

A 2025 survey by AeroProfessional, based on responses from 2,437 flight deck professionals worldwide, captures that dislocation in unusually granular form across aircraft types, ranks, regions and sectors.

The survey is heavily weighted toward Captains, with 69% of respondents, and First Officers at 31%.

Europe, excluding the UK, accounts for 47.6% of responses, the Middle East 14.8%, and the UK 10.6%, with the remainder spread across the Asia-Pacific, North America, Africa, and South America.

Service and legacy carriers account for 29.5% of respondents, followed by low-cost at 22.0%, charter and ACMI at 17.6%, corporate and VIP at 13.6%, and cargo at 9.7%.

This composition matters because it anchors the findings in the parts of the industry where fleet growth and schedule recovery have already exposed crew elasticity.

Global demand is rising

On the demand side, long-range forecasts remain unequivocal. Boeing’s Pilot and Technician Outlook for 2025–2044 projects that 660,000 new pilots will be needed globally over the next 20 years, with active pilot personnel rising from 315,000 in 2024 to 610,000 in 2044, a 94% increase.

This framing is often treated as a training pipeline problem, yet the near-term commercial reality is that attrition, switching and contractual fragmentation can constrain capacity even when training throughput improves.

AeroProfessional’s survey places a number on that volatility. Only 32% of pilots globally say they are not considering moving to another airline, a striking inversion of the historical assumption that seniority, stability and pension structures would anchor pilots to employers.

The report’s Managing Director, Sam Sprules, ties the shift to changing more than a single pay cycle, writing that “attracting the right flight crew requires more than just competitive pay, it demands a clear understanding of what pilots value most”.

In labour economics terms, pay is increasingly a necessary condition, and the supply curve is being shaped by non-wage utility as much as by nominal salary.

Pay is converging across regions

Salary convergence is visible in the narrow-body market. In Europe, excluding the UK, A320 Captain monthly basic pay ranges from €9,000 to €10,499, with First Officers from €4,500 to €5,999.

In the UK, the equivalent A320 Captain band is £9,000 to £10,499, with at £4,500 to £5,999. In the Middle East, the A320 Captain band is $10,500 to $11,999, with $7,500 to $ 9,999.

While exchange rates and tax structures complicate direct comparisons, it is that the global market has pulled narrow-body pay into tighter bands than was typical pre-pandemic.

Wide-body differentials persist but are not decisive. Europe, excluding the UK, shows B777 and B787 Captains at €13,500 to €14,999 and First Officers at €7,500 to €8,999.

The Middle East places B777 and B787 Captains in the same $13,500 to $14,499 range, while Officers are higher at $9,000 to $10,499.

These figures support the view that compensation has remained competitive, yet the survey’s behavioural indicators show that pay leadership is not translating into workforce stickiness.

The Middle East retention paradox

The report makes the paradox explicit. It finds that Middle East pilots earn the second-highest salaries globally, yet 65% are open to moving employers.

That willingness to move is not a fringe signal. In the Middle East, rearly 30% are considering a job change, and a further 36% are open to offers.

Two structural features stand out. First, variable pay is deeply embedded in Middle Eastern pilots’ earnings through bloc-hour pay, while sector and duty allowances are used far less commonly.

This matters because block hour systems can intensify the perceived imility, disruptions and seasonal schedule changes. Second, the pay ladder within the region is aircraft-dependent in ways that can encourage type-specific movement.

Gulfstream Captains are benchmarked at $15,000 to $16,499 monthly basic, while A380 Captains sit at $13,500 to $14,999 and A320 Captains at $10,500 to $11,999.

A market where pilots can convert type ratings into immediate commensurate benefits, particularly when fleet plans accelerate upgrades and command opportunities.

Europe and the UK

In Europe, excluding the UK, pay is the top reason pilots switch jobs: 39% say they would move for a better salary or benefits, and 27% cite improved rosters.

The distribution suggests a labour market where work-life balance is neither a necessary nor a quantifiable driver of employer switching.

The UK data underlines the operational mechanism behind that behaviour. Nearly half of UK Captains have been with their airline for less than four years, a sign that seniority-based retention is eroding. More directly, 58% of UK pilots reported no fixed roster pattern, and ve for better work-life balance.

These numbers imply that airlines seeking stability through pay-only are allocating resources.

In academic terms, the marginal retention benefit of an additional unit of salary may be lower than that of predictable scheduling, particularly in short-haul systems where fatigue management and commuting burdens are acute.

Benefits and contract models

Beyond salary, the survey provides a baseline for global benefits. Health insurance is the most common pilot benefit, provided to 59% of respondents, while education allowances are the least common at 11%.

Only 36% of pilots receive a company bonus, indicating that most airlines’ salary structures are performance-linked rather than company-based. In sectors where operational resilience depends on discretionary behaviour, open time, last-minute cover and training uplift, the limited penetration of variable corporate bonuses is notable.

Contract structure also differentiates regions. In North America, 85% of pilots are employed on permanent contracts, yet over half (54%) would consider switching employers, depending on the opportunity.

In the Asia-Pacific region, around one in five pilots work as contractors, and accommodation benefits are among the most commonly included elements in packages at 62%, 60% and 54%, respectively.

For airlines, these patterns imply that retention strategies must be tailored to the distributional constraints of each labour market.

A benefit-led proposition may be more effective where contracting is normalised, while roster stability may dominate where permanence is assumed but not experienced as protective.

Airline planning in 2026

The practical implication for airline executives is that crew cost inflation and crew availability risk are now coupled but not identical.

Boeing notes that “effective training and an adequate supply of personnel remain critical” for the system’s health and safety.

AeroProfessional reinforces that the headline salary view is incomplete, warning that “this report offers a headline view of basic salary … but it’s only part of the picture”.

Together, the sources point to a 2026 environment in which the binding constraint is not simply the number of licences issued to qualified pilots across operators, fleets, and lifestyle propositions.

For the Middle East in particular, the data suggests a premium-pay market with premium churn, which should reframe workforce strategy as an operational reliability function.

When bloc-hour systems dominate variable income, network planners must treat schedule stability, reserve design, and training-slot protection as retention tools rather than purely operational choices.

Where wide-body First Officer pay competes strongly internationally, upgrade pathways and predictable rotations become as important as the payslip.

In that sense, the most “expensive” pilot may be the one whose departure forces an aircraft swap, a frequency cut, or an extended wet lease.

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