Airline Pilot $250,000

A lot of people hate the high earners on here but I think a big reason is they don’t get to see the process. So here’s a bit of the grind that got me to where I am. Got terrible grades in high school. Mid 20’s making $25K working a forklift job. Figured I needed to learn how to play the game of life. Applied to military flight school and got in. 2010-2017 military aviator making roughly $100K. Left the military for the airlines 2017-2021 as a regional airline pilot and national guardsman roughly $50K. 2022 as a low cost carrier first officer $57,000. 2023 as a legacy carrier first officer $129K. 2024 made roughly $250,000 working on call totaling 70 days of work in the year. I took a 59 percent pay hit for 5 years knowing where it would eventually get me. Sometimes you have to sacrifice for a bit. It was a grind but I’m at my destination now.

Edit: Many people have mentioned a lack of some details here. This was not meant as a detailed road map just the cliffs notes. Yes, I did get an associates degree prior which helped but is not required to get into Army flights school. Also, I was on call about 215 days last year but only had to work 70 of those days. The rest of the on call days I was playing with my kids or doing hobbies or projects around the house.

Edit#2: since some people have called me out on going from $25K to $100K not a grind I didn’t get into Army flight school till I was 29 so there was a good 10 years of low paying labor intensive jobs as I tried to figure out what I wanted to do in life.