Airline pilots can earn as much as $100,000 in a single month during peak flying conditions, but that income is far from steady. Pay depends almost entirely on seniority, which planes a pilot flies, their schedule and their hourly rate, according to the Wall Street Journal. If the airline goes bankrupt or hits hard times, that can cut their pay as much as 60% overnight, as many pilots learned after United filed for bankruptcy following 9/11.
Then retirement hits. About 4,300 pilots reach the FAA’s mandatory retirement age of 65 every year through 2042, many walking away with a pension, a 401(k) and a brokerage account, sometimes worth millions combined. But the fact that they all converge at once suddenly triggers a wave of taxable income. Financial advisers who specialize in pilots say the real skill isn’t earning the paycheck, it’s knowing how and when to draw it down without triggering a massive tax bill or a spike in Medicare premiums.
“You plan for an engine failure on the ground,” says Annette VanderLinde of Liberty Wealth Advisors. “Twenty-thousand feet is not where you should be coming up with your contingency plan.”
Airline pilots can earn as much as $100,000 in a single month during peak flying conditions, but that income is far from steady. Pay depends almost entirely on seniority, which planes a pilot flies, their schedule and their hourly rate, according to the Wall Street Journal. If the airline goes bankrupt or hits hard times, that can cut their pay as much as 60% overnight, as many pilots learned after United filed for bankruptcy following 9/11.
Then retirement hits. About 4,300 pilots reach the FAA’s mandatory retirement age of 65 every year through 2042, many walking away with a pension, a 401(k) and a brokerage account, sometimes worth millions combined. But the fact that they all converge at once suddenly triggers a wave of taxable income. Financial advisers who specialize in pilots say the real skill isn’t earning the paycheck, it’s knowing how and when to draw it down without triggering a massive tax bill or a spike in Medicare premiums.
“You plan for an engine failure on the ground,” says Annette VanderLinde of Liberty Wealth Advisors. “Twenty-thousand feet is not where you should be coming up with your contingency plan.”
