Well, it’s that time of year, folks. The survey data waiting period. The big three surveys, NBAA, Gallagher, and IBM, have all completed their data collection and analysis, and the administrators of those surveys are waiting for the expiration of the three-month safe-harbor period (required by federal law) before they release the data. Since the data is usually current as of March/April of the year, the data drops in late July to early August.
The suspense is building. I am asked about my thoughts on current compensation trends on a regular basis so before I get into some numerical predictions, let me discuss two of the trends I’ve encountered throughout the last year.
I’ve noticed several LinkedIn posts that have tried to convince the industry that the pilot market is softening. In fact, Sun Country CEO Jude Bricker declared the pilot shortage “over” just last month (Aero Crew News, 2025). I’m not seeing that in the compensation world. So far this year, I’ve performed thirteen compensation studies for a variety of operators including corporate flight departments, management companies, and family offices. In every case, the compensation levels the client was paying were low versus the data and the client knew they would have to increase compensation or risk losing personnel. Additionally, I’ve processed hundreds of concierge level reports where the client asks me to run their compensation versus the data, and nearly all of those have been low as well. Additionally, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t see at least five corporate-pilot positions advertised either on social media or via email. That doesn’t sound like a soft market to me. Where the airlines are concerned, follow the news. They are all taking delivery of new aircraft and adding route structure, and all of them will suffer more crew retirements as Boomers (like yours truly), are retired. Whether we’re talking business aviation or the airlines, the demand is still there.
Turning to maintenance personnel, compensation for the four positions I track grew almost 10% from 2023 to 2024, just under the pilots at 11%. Maintenance supervisor, a crew-chief/managerial position, showed compensation growth of nearly 17% over the same period. From an anecdotal perspective, I’ve had a booth at the NBAA Maintenance Conference for the last two years and I’ve offered any maintenance professional who came by the booth a free review of their compensation levels. In 2024, the majority of them were low versus the data. In 2025, the majority were at or above the data. Increased price means increased demand, folks.
Now, let’s get to some numerical projections – and we’ll see how well I do when the new data comes out.
Here’s my first estimate—the minimum growth percentage for total cash compensation from 2024-2025 across the 14 positions I track. The data is based off weighted averages for the NBAA and Gallagher Surveys. (I cannot include averages from the IBM survey because distribution of it is limited to those who are participants in the survey.)
I use the average growth over the last five years for each position, so in the raw survey data, I predict 2025’s average total compensation levels will grow by a factor that is at least the rate presented in the right column.
Now, let’s get down to where the cash meets the road. Here’s what I predict the minimum average total cash compensation levels will be in the 2025 survey data.
Now, keep in mind that these projections are the averages across all aircraft classes and they represent the minimum total cash compensation levels for each position.
So, there you have it! This is the first time that I can recall someone making concrete projections of what compensation levels will be in our industry. Keep a copy of this article handy because in the September column, we’ll compare the actuals versus the projections.
Stay tuned!
Bibliography
Aero Crew News. (2025, May 5). Pilot Hiring Update. Retrieved from LinkedIn.com: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7326696994826006528/
