Upgrade to Captain or Stay an FO? – Another PMTB Calculator

Should I upgrade to Captain, or remain an FO?

This is a common discussion topic on my flight deck because pilots at my airline can hold B757/B767 (“7ER”) Captain at or below one year on property. Upgrading on one of our narrowbody categories becomes possible just a few months after indoc. This isn’t unique to us. United has had several hundred unfilled Captain’s seats, just waiting for someone to take them.

The only viable answer to this question is: “It depends.” Too many variables make for rather complex calculus when facing this decision. There’s a lot to be said for the Quality of Life that comes with a good schedule every month, priority when dropping or picking up trips, being able to hold desirable vacation weeks, and more.

However, I also encounter a lot of FOs who are making as much money as I am, or potentially even more, by focusing on getting trips that offer premium pay. Why would I upgrade, they ask, giving up seniority and other QOL factors, when I’m earning as much as you are.

Yes, it is realistic to make as much as or more than a Captain as an FO. The question is: how hard does an FO have to work to reach that level?

This is Pilot Math Treasure Bath, so we’re going to use some real-world numbers to get some firm answers. You may know by now that I’m a fan of spreadsheets, and it shouldn’t surprise you that I built a calculator to address this specific question.

Disclaimer:

In theory, some of this could appear as bragging. It’s not. This data is publicly available and you’re welcome to do the math yourself. Delta, and every other major airline with any sense, is hiring pilots as fast as they can right now. If you want to enjoy this kind of pay and QOL, it’s attainable. I’m beyond thankful for the opportunity to hold this job, and I only write stuff like this to help others enjoy and maximize the value they get from their jobs.

Captain vs FO Calculator

First off: this calculator is available to you for free here. Please use “File -> Make a Copy” or “File -> Download” to get a version you can edit. Please, DO NOT ask to edit the master. The rest of the internet has no interest in watching you gonk through your personal scenarios.

The calculator for today’s exercise compares Captain vs FO pay at Delta. I hand-jammed the pay charts for 2024-2026, including the raise Delta pilots got thanks to the United pilots triggering their “me too” clause. (I occasionally have fat fingers. If I made an error please just fix it on your copy. You can let me know if you like.)

Setting your inputs in the yellow boxes will project a Captain’s annual pay. By default, the calculator assumes you want to compare that income to FO pay on the same aircraft at the same year of service. (You can look at other scenarios by changing inputs in the light yellow boxes in the FO section.)

The calculator then assumes you want to make the same amount of money as an FO and starts working backwards from that value. It factors out company 401K contributions and profit sharing, then figures out how many hours of pay you’d need to earn per month to reach your annual total.

By default, the calculator assumes you only get the Average Daily Guarantee (ADG) of 5+15 hours of pay per workday. My category, the B737, usually runs more like 6-6.5 hours per day on average, so change that as appropriate for your category.

Your big takeaway will appear in the purple boxes. The number of hours required at a given pay rate and number of workdays required per month to get those hours appear next to each other on their respective rows.

Since Captain pay rates are higher, this calculation should show FOs needing more hours to break even. In many cases, this is doable without working too many extra days. Last summer, I flew with an FO who was on his 7th Green Slip (premium pay trip), in addition to flying an Inverse Assignment trip and getting a high-paying reroute that month (also sources of extra pay). When done correctly, a pilot could do this without working much more than I normally do. However, it’s important that you be honest with yourself. Premium pay isn’t always available when you want it.

Scenario #1 – Year 3 CA vs FO

Our first scenario considers a Captain on Year 3 pay flying with an FO from their new hire class. They’re essentially equal seniority, but the Captain only flies a guaranteed 74 hours per month. Here’s what we get:

Our Captain would expect more than $374K in total compensation, putting them in the top 2% of all Americans. Wow!

Could our FO match this? Absolutely! They would only have to credit an average of 121.6 hours per month. That’s 65% more hours for the same amount of money. Assuming only normal pay rates and flying the same number of hours per day, the FO in this example would have to spend nearly twice as many days away from home to match the pay of their Captain. Yuck!

Realistically, most of the difference here could be covered by the FO picking up a single 4-day Green Slip each month. In some categories, that’s a very reliable expectation. In others, this isn’t particularly realistic.

I chose Year 3 pay for this scenario because pay scales have a steep slope for the first two years. It doesn’t take too much for the FO to break even with the Captain. Let’s see what this would have looked like if these had been first year pilots:

Scenario #2 – First Year Pilots

Here we have a CA and FO flying the A320 on Year 1 pay:

The difference here is staggering. In order to make as much as a peer Captain, this FO would have to credit 210 hours…280% as much! This is equivalent to more than 51 days at straight pay, meaning this is physically impossible unless the FO has access to a lot of premium pay.

For me, this shows a significant financial advantage to upgrading early. If you’re going to upgrade early anyway, it’s worth the most in your first couple years.

Scenario #3 – Lazy Captain

Let’s switch gears for a moment and consider a different reason for upgrading. One of the arguments my FOs use for not upgrading is that they like their QOL. I think that’s a great choice, from a certain point of view.

However, I often wonder how little I could work and still make the same amount of money as the average FO. If you iterate through some scenarios on our calculator, you might come up with something like this:

I chose the B737 at Year 5 pay, and used a low estimate of the profit sharing that Delta pilots will most likely get in February 2024, just to make things different. You’ll find a similar break-even point using any consistent set of criteria.

Under these assumptions, a Year 5 FO who upgraded to Captain could cut down to only working 9 days per month, half of what they were doing as an FO, and make the same money. That’s one 4-day, one 3-day, and one 2-day trip per month…pretty light duty! As an FO, this pilot would have to fly four 4-day trips and a 3-day each month to make the same money. That’s a lot more time spent at work to have a little more control over your schedule.

This scenario assumes that, as a Captain, our FO would be able to drop a trip or two each month. The staffing vs scheduled flying at Delta is so out of control right now, that this is very unrealistic. However, we hope for a steady state where this becomes more of an option, if desired.

Scenario #4 – Back to FO

I once flew a B717 trip with a Captain who was about to go back to the B777 as an FO…the category he’d just come from. I was surprised. I knew that’s completely different flying, but what about the financial hit? It turns out it’s not nearly as bad as I thought.

At Delta, it turns out the top-line pay rate for widebody FO is only $13.02 per hour less than the top-line pay rate for B717 Captain. Using the 1000x rule of thumb, we’d normally assume this means the B717 Captain would make $13,000 more per year than the widebody FO.

Our calculator shows that this pilot would only have to work an extra 3 hours per month as a widebody FO to equal the pay they were making as a B717 Captain. This math is somewhat unique for the B717 because its pay rates are rock bottom at Delta. Anyone who can hold this seat can also hold Captain on an A321neo or B757. This significantly alters the math:

When comparing widebody FO to B757 or A321neo Captain, this FO would have to scrounge up a full extra week of work to break even. That’s a 50% increase, and there isn’t always that much extra flying available on widebodies, even if you want it. However, for one Captain I flew with, this switch made a lot of sense.

Scenario #5 – New Hires Working Too Hard

This calculator enables me to make clear a point that I sometimes have difficulty communicating to my FOs. I’m based in NYC where staffing is never great and opportunities to pick up extra flying from Open Time (typically) abound. I frequently encounter new hires so excited about Delta’s starting pay rates that they chase money hard throughout their first year.

Like Mr. Seven-Greenslips-And-Counting from earlier, several of my new-hire FOs have been flying like crazy, picking up a lot of extra flying out of Open Time. They seem to enjoy it while I’m happy to fly with them and proud to keep them hydrated on our layovers. However, I feel like this isn’t particularly efficient on first year pay. Let’s examine:

Delta’s first year pay is good, but it’s no better than regional airline pay right now. In order to earn as much as I am, my new-hire FOs would have to credit an average of 223 hours per month. While this is actually doable in some months, it’s not consistently an option. More importantly: a pilot flying that much puts themselves in danger of burnout way too early in the major airline portion of their career.

Starting at a new airline is a time of change, with excitement and challenges for pilots and their families. Yes, pilots moving from regional airline Captain to major airline FO are taking a pay cut these days. However, it’s worth relaxing a little and giving your family time to get used to this new phase of life. I don’t feel like it’s worth spending all your time on the road when your hourly pay rate is so low.

If you’re after money, wait until Year 2 or 3 when your hourly rate nearly doubles. Or, take that early Captain upgrade. Then, you can make more money working an average schedule than a hard-charging FO rushing toward burnout.

For comparison, consider this:

Even a Year 1 Captain can make as much money with just 26 hours of work per month as a Year 1 FO working a regular schedule. At Delta, there’s a scheduling option called a Monthly Blank Line (MBL). This awards the pilot 25 hours of pay for the month, with zero obligation to do any work. The company doesn’t award many MBLs, so it’s not realistic to expect to get one in any given month. However, in principle, a Year 1 Captain on an MBL would make as much as any peers working a regular schedule.

I say: fly your assigned schedule during your first year, but then enjoy spending time with your family. You will find more effective ways to chase money later.

Year 1 pay at a major airline is fantastic. It puts you in the top 13% of all Americans. If that feels like a drastic hit to your “lifestyle,” it means you’re doing everything wrong.

Yes, I am judging you.

Try rethinking your Pilot Math so you don’t end up poor and angry at the end of your career. A Year 1 major airline pilot should be making so much money that they can cover an average family’s needs and still sock away tens of thousands of dollars into savings. I know a self-published schmuck who wrote an entire book aimed at helping you figure that all out. I recommend waiting to get the 2nd edition, due out in 2024.

Scenario #6 – Captain Now vs. Career FO

Our final scenario for today is one I’ve considered many times. I also enjoy amicable arguments about this scenario with a few friends who remain zealously on the opposite side.

I’m a Year 8 B737 Captain. My friends are Year 10 A330 FOs. Thanks to the wonderful soft pay provisions in our new contract, my trips are very efficient and I don’t have to try hard at all to earn more credit than the minimum guarantee each month. Part of being efficient means my trips tend to credit an average of at least 6+15 per day, including soft pay. You’ll see those two facts reflected by me putting 85 as my “Monthly Pay Hours” and “6.25” under ADG in this run:

On the surface, this makes it appear that my widebody friends have to work upwards of 24 days per month, and credit 97.7 hours, to equal what I’m pulling down through 14 days of work per month as a narrowbody Captain.

If they actually had to work that many days, it’d be terrible. Realistically, they seem capable of picking up an occasional Green Slip, or flying trips with legs long enough to be much more efficient and reduce total days spent at work.

Even better, as Year 10 FOs, they’re senior enough to hold reserve. Yes, reserve goes senior on widebody categories because pilots tend to drop out less at the last minute. Reserve widebody pilots get used less than those on narrowbody categories, and I know of people who work an average of about 5 days per month, while still earning reserve guarantee.

It’s interesting to know that without any shenanigans, I’m making more money than senior peers without feeling that I have to work hard at all. However, It’s also a constant reminder of the fact that I could be making nearly as much as I am now (a stupidly large amount) while dozing for dollars on international flights to Europe.

It also makes me glad that I’m not stuck flying the worst narrowbody in the industry (or the Airbus) for the rest of my career like some friends at other airlines.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoy playing with this calculator. I hope it’s useful in helping you strategize future AE bids. My goal here is not to convince you to upgrade. Staying senior as an FO has many non-monetary advantages. If I were to do it, the goal would be to spend even more time at home than I do now. In my opinion, the QOL-based reasons for not upgrading are morally and ideologically superior to chasing money. However, if when discussing your career decisions and plans you use money as justification for not upgrading, this may weaken your argument. I hope this will either help you focus on the other benefits of bidding for seniority, or help you realize what you need to do to achieve your financial objectives.

Remember: DO NOT ask for editor permissions on the master copy of this calculator. Make a copy or download your own!

If you dive in there, you’ll notice a third section that we haven’t even addressed here. It’s for comparing what a Delta pilot makes to income at other airlines. It’s going to help me make a point in another post due out shortly. I’ll update a link to it here when that goes live.

If you didn’t find it earlier, here’s another copy only link to that calculator.