How Much Do Flight Attendants Make (2026 Data)

Half of all US flight attendants earn less than $63,580¹ a year and half earn more, yet the same job pays $35,110 at the 10th percentile and $136,430 at the 90th. That spread is built into the way cabin crews are paid: a rate per flight hour rather than per hour at work, a seniority scale of 13 to 20 steps, and an hourly allowance for every hour spent away from base.²

This page breaks the pay down by year, month, week and flight hour, by airline and years of service, and by state and city. It shows why a New York crew member averages $115,670³ while the Pennsylvania mean is $43,130, why a new hire at one airline starts $12.71 an hour above a new hire at another, and why the typical wage, after inflation, now sits below its 2020 level.

How much a flight attendant makes a year

The typical US flight attendant earned $63,580¹ a year in May 2025, the median across 131,650¹ jobs in every industry. The median is the midpoint: half of all flight attendants earn more and half earn less. It counts base pay and some premiums but leaves out per diem, profit sharing and most bonuses¹, so it understates what many crew members receive over a full year.

The spread around that midpoint is wide. The bottom 10% earn $35,110¹ or less and the bottom quarter up to $51,760, while the top quarter earns at least $95,640 and the top 10% at least $136,430.¹ The 90th percentile is now 3.89⁴ times the 10th, up from 2.50 in 2011; the ratio was as low as 2.2 in 2021 and as high as 4.06 in 2024.⁵

Over time the median has climbed. It rose from $38,020⁵ in May 2011 to $68,370⁵ in 2023, then slipped to $67,130 in 2024 and $63,580 in 2025. The 2025 figure is 5.3%⁴ below 2024, but these official estimates are built from a rolling three-year sample of employers and are not designed for year-to-year comparison¹, so a one-year move says little on its own. Over the full 14 years the median rose 67%⁴.

How much the average flight attendant makes

The mean, or arithmetic average, is higher than the median: $77,440¹ a year in May 2025, $13,860⁴ above the midpoint. The gap comes from the top of the distribution: the top quarter of the workforce earns $95,640 or more, and a tail of high earners pulls the average above the typical wage. The mean rose from $41,720⁵ in 2011 to $78,950 in 2024, then eased to $77,440.

Which figure to use depends on the question. For what a typical flight attendant earns, the median is the better guide; for total payroll per worker, the mean. Neither includes per diem, which is paid per hour away from base and treated as an allowance rather than a wage.¹

Pay per month, per week and per hour

Flight attendants are paid under contract rules rather than a fixed monthly salary, but the annual figures convert to a monthly and weekly view, and the contracts themselves are written in hourly rates.

How much flight attendants make per month

At the median, flight attendants make $5,298⁴ per month before tax, and at the mean $6,453⁴: the annual figures divided by 12. A crew member at the 10th percentile earns about $2,926⁴ a month, and one at the 90th percentile about $11,369⁴.

Real monthly paychecks swing with the schedule, because pay follows the hours flown or credited in each month. Contracts set the floor. At Frontier a reserve flight attendant is guaranteed 75 credit hours² per bid period, every duty period credits at least 4 hours 30 minutes, and hours above 82 per bid period pay time-and-a-half.²

How much flight attendants make a week

Full-time flight attendants had median usual weekly earnings of $1,247⁶ in 2025, up from $846 in 2015. That is $43⁴ above the $1,204 median for all full-time wage and salary workers. This weekly figure comes from a household survey of full-time workers only, a different population from the annual wage estimates, and it rests on small samples: about 65,000⁶ full-time flight attendants in 2025, with occupation codes that changed in 2020.

The one-year jump from $1,064 in 2024 to $1,247 in 2025, 17.2%⁴, runs against the annual wage estimates, which fell over the same year. With samples this small, the weekly series is best read as a level, not a trend. Women flight attendants' weekly median, published only in years with a large enough sample, was $996⁶ in 2024, against $1,064 for all full-time flight attendants.

How much flight attendants make an hour

No official hourly wage exists for flight attendants. The national wage estimates publish only annual pay for this job, because crews do not work a standard year-round schedule¹, and dividing the annual median by a standard 2,080-hour work year would not describe how they are paid. The hourly figures airlines publish are contract rates per flight hour or per credit unit, paid for time the aircraft is moving or credited under the contract, not for every hour at work.² On the latest published scales, those rates run from $25.50² for a first-year crew member at Frontier to $87.47⁷ for a year-13 crew member at United from July 2026, rising to $100.13 by July 2030.

Pay after inflation, and the gap between top and bottom

Rising prices have taken much of the gain. In 2025 dollars, adjusted with the consumer price index, the median was $54,416⁴ in 2011 and $63,580 in 2025, a real rise of 17%⁴ against 67% before inflation.⁸ Real pay peaked at $73,454⁴ in 2020 and has since fallen by 13.4%⁴.

That 2020 peak needs care. Flight-attendant employment fell from 120,840⁵ in 2019 to 116,260 in 2020 and 96,900 in 2021, and when fewer, more senior crew members remain on the payroll, the median can rise without anyone getting a raise. The same one-year caveat applies here as to the nominal figures.⁵

The deflator is the consumer price index for all urban consumers, whose annual average rose from 224.939 in 2011 to 321.943⁸ in 2025. Each year's May median is multiplied by the 2025 index and divided by that year's index.

The distance between the bottom and the top of the pay range has widened too. The 10th-percentile wage rose from $24,990⁵ in 2011 to $35,110 in 2025, while the 90th percentile more than doubled, from $62,470 to $136,430.⁵ Most of the widening came in 2024, when the 90th percentile reached $138,040 and the 10th fell to $34,030. In 2025 the 10th percentile edged back up by $1,080⁴.

A salary is an annual total. The paycheck behind it is built flight hour by flight hour, and the rules for counting those hours explain much of the spread.

How flight attendant pay works

Flight hours, not clock hours

Contracts pay a rate per flight hour (block hour) or per credit unit. At Frontier, pay is the hourly rate times the hours flown plus credit, counting actual or scheduled block time, whichever is greater.² At Alaska the unit is the TFP, a trips-for-pay credit based on the trip rather than the clock⁹, and Southwest also pays per TFP credit hour.¹⁰ Time spent boarding, waiting at the gate or resting on a layover is paid only where the contract adds it, which is why boarding pay and per diem matter so much.

How often flight attendants work

Federal rules cap a flight attendant's scheduled duty day at 14 hours¹¹ with the minimum crew and require at least 10 consecutive hours of rest. With 1, 2 or 3 extra flight attendants on board, the limit rises to 16, 18 and 20 hours, and the 20-hour limit applies only when a flight lands or takes off outside the 48 contiguous states and DC. After more than 14 hours on duty, rest must be at least 12 hours, which can be cut to 10 if the following rest is at least 14.¹¹

Flying hours are only part of the working month. Frontier's contract sets a minimum of 50 credit hours² per bid period with no line guarantee for lineholders, and Emirates plans its pay on an average of 80 to 100 flying hours a month.¹²

Minimum pay and reserve

Because flights get cancelled and trips shrink, contracts set minimum credits. Alaska credits at least 4.0 TFP⁹ per duty period and at least 5.0 TFP per duty period on average across a trip, and a reserve there is guaranteed 5.0 TFP per reserve day.⁹ Southwest guarantees reserves 6.5 TFP¹³ a day, and United adds a $2.00⁷ per flight hour override when a crew member flies on reserve.

Frontier also credits 1 hour for every 4.2 hours² away from base, a rule known as trip rig, so a long trip with little flying still builds credit. Lineholders there have no line guarantee, which makes these minimums the main protection against a thin month.²

Boarding pay and per diem

Under flight-hour pay, boarding falls outside the paid block time unless a contract adds it.² Delta began paying for boarding on June 2, 2022, at 50% of the hourly rate¹⁴, and Alaska followed on August 14, 2024 with 0.42 TFP per boarding.⁹ American's 2024 contract added boarding pay from the month after ratification in September 2024, worth an estimated 8.2%¹⁵ average wage increase, and United's 2026 contract adds it from summer 2026, worth 7-8%¹⁶ of pay on average.

On top of pay, crews receive per diem, an hourly allowance for every hour away from base that the annual wage figures leave out. At the latest rates, domestic per diem runs from $2.85⁹ an hour at Alaska (from August 2026) and at American (since its 2024 contract)¹⁸ to $3.04¹³ at Southwest (2026), and international rates reach $3.63¹³ at Southwest. A full 24 hours away at $2.85 adds $68.40⁴; at $3.63 it adds $87.12⁴.

Starting pay vs senior pay

How much flight attendants make when starting

A new flight attendant starts at the bottom of the scale, and where that bottom sits depends on the airline. Among six US airlines with published scales, starting rates range from $25.50² per flight hour at Frontier to $38.21⁷ at United from July 2026, a gap of $12.71⁴ an hour. JetBlue new hires are paid on a mandatory Premium scale for their first six months, at $26.03¹⁹ an hour; that rate then rises to $29.37, and only after six months can crews choose the regular Straight scale, which pays $32.25 in year one.¹⁹ At Alaska and Southwest the starting rates are per TFP credit, $33.95 and $32.62.

The first year is not flat either. At Southwest the rate rises from $32.62 per TFP credit hour in the first six months of 2026 to $33.03¹⁰ in months 7 to 12, and step 1 then pays $36.21.

How much senior flight attendants make

At the top of the scale, after 13 to 20 years depending on the airline, hourly rates more than double. United's year-13 rate is $87.47⁷ per flight hour from July 2026, 2.29⁴ times its first-year rate, and American's year-13 rate is $82.24¹⁵, 2.30⁴ times year one. Frontier has the longest ladder of the six, 20 bands, and tops out at $60.00², $27.47⁴ below United's top rate.

Those ladders differ airline by airline, and so do the raises, profit sharing and the way each contract counts time. The next section takes each airline in turn.

Flight attendant pay by airline

How much Delta flight attendants make

Delta's flight-attendant pay is set by the company rather than by a union contract²⁰, and the most recent full set of Delta rates available is from March 2024, before that year's raise. At that point a first-year Delta crew member earned $33.81¹⁰ an hour and a year-12 or year-13 crew member $76.00, below the block-hour equivalent of Southwest's new scale at every step.

Delta has raised base pay across the board every year since 2022: 4%²⁰ that year, 5% in each of 2023 and 2024, and the same rate as 2022 again in 2025.²⁰ The 2026 raise, the fifth in a row, matched it and costs the airline about $500 million²¹ a year. Compounded, the five raises add about 24%⁴ to pay; relative to the March 2024 rates above, the 2024 to 2026 raises add about 13.6%⁴, before any step increase for another year of service.

Delta also shares profits with all eligible employees, paid each February for the previous year. The pool was $1.3 billion²² for 2018 and $1.6 billion²³ for 2019, and there was no payout for 2020, a loss year.²⁴ A special payout of $108 million covered the second half of 2021, and the 2022 pool was $563 million²⁵. It returned to $1.4 billion²⁶ for both 2023 and 2024 and was $1.3 billion²⁷ for 2025, equal to 8.9%²⁸ of eligible earnings, paid on February 13, 2026. Over the eight years shown, the pools add up to $7,671 million⁴.

Because each payout is a percentage of eligible earnings, the same 8.9% for 2025 is worth more to a senior crew member on a higher rate than to a new hire.²⁸ Profit sharing is also missing from the official wage figures, which exclude it.¹

How much a United flight attendant makes

United's flight attendants ratified a five-year contract on May 12, 2026, with 82%¹⁶ voting yes; it covers about 30,000¹⁶ flight attendants. From July 30, 2026 the scale runs from $38.21 per flight hour in year one to $87.47 in year 13, and yearly raises lift the top rate to $100.13⁷ by July 2030. Per diem is $2.97 an hour domestic and $3.54 international.⁷ By 2030 a senior crew member earns 2.62⁴ times the 2026 first-year rate.

The contract also paid $741 million¹⁶ in retroactive pay for the years without a new scale, worked out as a percentage of each period's pay: 4% for late 2021 and for each of 2022, 2023 and 2024, 22%²⁹ for 2025 and 25% for January to May 2026.

How much an American Airlines flight attendant makes

American's flight attendants ratified a new contract in September 2024¹⁷, replacing a scale set in January 2019. Rates rose 18% to 20.5% at every step: year one went from $30.35 to $35.82¹⁵ per flight hour and year 13 from $68.25 to $82.24. The contract then adds yearly raises of 2.75%, 3%, 3% and 3.5%.¹⁵

Crews also received retroactive pay for the years without a raise, from 3% of pay for 2020 to 20%¹⁷ for 2024 up to August 31.

American also runs a profit-sharing plan for all eligible employees, funded by 10% of adjusted pre-tax earnings up to $2.5 billion and 20% above that.³⁰ The pool accrued $261 million³¹ for 2023, $228 million³² for 2024 and $55 million³⁰ for 2025, each paid out in the first quarter of the next year. Delta's 2024 pool was 6.1⁴ times American's.

How much Southwest flight attendants make

Southwest's 2024 contract raised every step by 22.325%¹⁰ on May 1, 2024, followed by 3% on May 1 of 2025, 2026 and 2027. For a first-year step-1 crew member, the 2024 raise alone lifted the rate from $27.91 to $34.14, and per diem rises by 2.5% a year to $3.20 domestic and $3.81 international in 2028.¹⁰ A new hire earns $32.62 per TFP credit hour in the first six months of 2026 and a step-13 crew member $82.14, 2.52⁴ times as much; by May 2027 the top step reaches $84.60.¹⁰

How much Alaska Airlines flight attendants make

Alaska's 2024 contract took effect on August 14, 2024 and raises the scale on each anniversary. Year one pays $33.95⁹ per TFP from August 14, 2026 and year 14 pays $78.51, 2.31⁴ times as much. Per diem rose from $2.51 an hour at signing to $2.85 in August 2026.⁹

Boarding pay lifts the effective rate on each flight. In 2026 a first-year crew member's total rate per TFP ranges from $35.55⁹ to $45.36 once boarding pay is added, and a year-14 crew member's from $82.20 to $104.89.

How much Frontier flight attendants make

Frontier's newest published contract covers 2019 to 2024 and has the longest ladder of the airlines shown, 20 seniority bands.² On its June 2023 step, band 0-1 pays $25.50² per flight hour and band 19-20 pays $60.00, 2.35⁴ times as much; the original 2019 rates were $23.56 and $55.43. Hours above 82 credit hours per bid period pay time-and-a-half, $35.34⁴ at the 2019 first-year rate.

How much JetBlue flight attendants make

JetBlue's regular Straight scale rose every January from 2024 to 2026: year one went from $29.82¹⁹ to $32.25 per flight hour and year 13 from $64.63 to $69.90. The top Straight rate is 2.69⁴ times the $26.03 Premium rate a new hire starts on.

Spirit's pay under its 2023 agreement

Spirit's 2023 agreement summary publishes no full scale, only a worked example of one flight attendant's pay. That crew member earned $33.94³³ per flight hour at step 6 before the deal, $39.60 when it was ratified in April 2023, and $48.35 at step 9 by June 2025, after two yearly raises and three step increases, 42.5%⁴ more than before.

From scheduled US airlines, the view widens to charter operators and foreign carriers.

Private jets, charters and international airlines

How much private flight attendants make

Almost all US flight attendants, 127,660³⁴ of 131,650 or 97%⁴, work for scheduled airlines. About 2,080 work in nonscheduled air transportation, the industry that includes charter, air taxi and private-jet operators, where the median was $70,700³⁴ in May 2025, above the $63,570 median at scheduled airlines. The nonscheduled mean, $73,550, was below the scheduled mean of $77,420, and its employment estimate is less precise, with a relative standard error of 15.5%.³⁴

Charter and private-jet work also has a wider spread. Its 10th percentile, $26,850³⁴, is lower than at scheduled airlines, and its 90th percentile, $139,170, is higher. A smaller group of 1,360 flight attendants works in support activities for air transportation, where the median was $59,020. Cabin crew employed by the flight departments of companies outside aviation are counted in their employer's own industry, inside the other and residual group, not in nonscheduled air transportation.³⁴

How much an Emirates flight attendant makes

For a sense of how much international flight attendants make outside the US, Emirates pays a Grade II economy-class crew member a basic salary of AED 4,980¹² a month plus flying pay of AED 69.6 per flying hour, based on an average of 80 to 100 flying hours a month. The average total comes to AED 11,244, or USD 3,061¹² a month, about $36,732⁴ a year, with free furnished accommodation, company transport and 30 calendar days of leave a year. That monthly total is 58%⁴ of the US median monthly wage, before the value of the free housing is counted.

Where flight attendants make the most

Flight-attendant pay depends heavily on where crews are based. Flight-attendant estimates exist for only 20³ states, with wages for 19, so the map shows a related measure published for almost every state: jobs in private air transportation, which counts all airline workers, from pilots and cabin crew to mechanics and agents.³⁵ Texas had the most, 73,894³⁵ jobs, followed by California and Florida.

Among the states with published flight-attendant wages, New York leads by a wide margin: a mean of $115,670³ and a median of $126,650, nearly double the national median. Pennsylvania is at the other end, with a mean of $43,130³, though that estimate is imprecise, with a relative standard error of 17.8%. On these figures New York's mean is 2.68⁴ times Pennsylvania's.

How much flight attendants make in California

California has more flight attendants than any other state with a published count, 15,840³, and pays them a mean of $83,000 and a median of $82,170, 29%⁴ above the national median.

How much flight attendants make in Texas is below the national figure: a median of $58,220³ for 13,470 workers, 8.4%⁴ under the national median. Florida pays less still: a median of $47,320³ and a mean of $58,050 across 13,220 jobs, 26%⁴ below the national median. The Miami metro, with 8,100 flight attendants, has the same $47,320 median, and Orlando, with 3,410, a median of $59,400.³⁶

Metro areas

Metro areas sharpen the picture. The New York-Newark-Jersey City metro pays flight attendants a mean of $127,220³⁶ and a median of $127,740, and with 18,030³⁶ jobs it has the largest flight-attendant workforce of the metros with a published count. San Francisco follows at a mean of $91,980, and Philadelphia sits at the bottom at $44,250, an estimate with a 19% relative standard error.³⁶

Where the jobs are is a different list. After New York come Los Angeles with 10,080³⁶ flight attendants, Chicago with 9,240, Miami with 8,100 and Dallas-Fort Worth with 7,680. Colorado, home of the Denver metro's 6,930, has 2.474 flight attendants per 1,000 jobs, 2.92³ times the national share, and Nevada's concentration is higher still at 3.07 times.

Several metros publish flight-attendant wages but no job count. Atlanta has a mean of $83,910³⁶ and a median of $78,320, Seattle a mean of $84,220 and Salt Lake City a mean of $90,870, while their employment is not published.

Average pay across all air-transportation jobs, pilots and mechanics included, follows its own pattern. It is highest in the District of Columbia, $255,542³⁵ a year across only 90 jobs, followed by Ohio at $148,331 and Georgia at $139,263. Those averages mix every airline occupation, so they say more about which jobs are based in a state than about cabin crew pay.

Compared with pilots and other jobs

Flight attendants earn more than the typical US worker. Their median of $63,580 is 25%⁴ above the $50,980¹ median for all occupations, a gap of $12,600⁴ a year, and well above the $44,350 median for transportation and material moving jobs. On the flight deck the numbers change scale: airline pilots, copilots and flight engineers have a median of $232,140¹, 3.65⁴ times the flight-attendant median.

Flight attendants also outnumber pilots, with 131,650¹ jobs against 103,560 airline pilots, 47,630 commercial pilots and 22,510 air traffic controllers.

The spread within each job differs too. The 10th percentile for flight attendants, $35,110¹, is close to the $31,200 of all occupations, while their 90th percentile, $136,430, is above the $128,560 for all jobs. Airline pilots range from $106,710 at the 10th percentile to $463,830 at the 90th.

On the ground, air traffic controllers earn a median of $148,080¹ and airfield operations specialists $56,850, so a flight attendant's typical pay sits between the two. Computer and mathematical jobs, a common benchmark for well-paid office work, have a median of $109,280.

Jobs and hiring outlook

The number of flight attendants has grown by half since 2011, from 87,190⁵ to 131,650 in May 2025, a rise of 51%⁴. The path was not smooth: jobs fell to 96,900 in 2021, then recovered to 130,110 in 2024 and 131,650 in 2025. Like the wage figures, these yearly estimates are not designed for year-to-year comparison⁵, so a single year's change, such as the 1.2%⁴ rise in 2025, should be read with care.

The official outlook expects growth to continue. Flight-attendant employment is projected to rise from 133.7 thousand³⁷ in 2025 to 145.5 thousand in 2035, an increase of 8.8%³⁷, with about 18,500³⁷ openings a year. The projection counts jobs differently from the wage estimates, including the self-employed, so its 2025 figure is not the same as the 131,650 above.³⁷

The job is growing slightly faster than piloting. Airline pilot, copilot and flight engineer jobs are projected to grow 8.3%³⁷ over the same decade, with 11,200 openings a year, and commercial pilot jobs 5.2%. Flight attendants need a high school diploma or equivalent to start, while airline pilots typically need a bachelor's degree.³⁷

Airlines themselves have grown as well. Counting every employee group, not only cabin crew, US passenger airlines reporting as majors employed 490,942³⁸ people in 2025, 30%⁴ more than the 377,772 of 2008. The series has no figures for 2009, 2012 and 2013.

By carrier, Delta, American and United each employed just over 100,000 people in 2025, and Southwest 72,157³⁸. These totals cover every job at the airline, so they show the size of each employer rather than the number of cabin crew.

Over time, the big four followed the same shape, with a dip in 2020 and 2021 and a rebound to new highs. Delta fell from 84,765 employees in 2019 to 64,304³⁸ in 2020 and reached 104,154 in 2025; American's jump between 2011 and 2014 reflects its merger with US Airways, a change in the reporting entity.³⁸

How much it costs to become a flight attendant

The typical entry requirement is a high school diploma or equivalent³⁷, and airlines train their new hires themselves; some do not pay for that training.³⁹ Alaska and Hawaiian do not pay for training but give trainees a $40³⁹ daily training per diem, while Horizon puts trainees on the payroll from the Sunday before class.

Once through training, pay starts at the bottom of the scale: $32.00³⁹ per TFP at Alaska at the August 2024 step-one rate, since raised to $33.95⁹, $28.96 per block hour at Hawaiian and $20.66 per block hour on reserve at Horizon.³⁹

Who works as a flight attendant

The household survey counted 129 thousand⁴⁰ employed flight attendants in 2025, up from 86 thousand in 2015, a broader count than the payroll-based wage estimates. About three in four are women: 74.1%⁴⁰ in 2025, against 47.1% of all employed people, a gap of 27.0⁴ percentage points. The share moves from year to year on small samples, from 64.6% in 2021 to 81.3% in 2019, so the level matters more than any single change.

The workforce is also more diverse than the labor force as a whole: 16.5%⁴⁰ of flight attendants are Black and 15.2% Asian, against 12.7% and 7.5% of all workers, while 17.3% are Hispanic or Latino, against 20.0% of all workers. Men make up the remaining 25.9%⁴ of flight attendants. White workers make up 64.6% of flight attendants and 75.7% of all employed people.⁴⁰

What the pay means in practice

For a household budget, the median flight attendant has about $5,298⁴ a month before tax, and a crew member at the 10th percentile about $2,926.⁴ Per diem adds a little on every trip, from $2.85⁹ to $3.63¹³ for each hour away, which is $68.40⁴ to $87.12 for a full day away from base, and it is not part of the wage figures.¹

Within one airline, seniority drives the pay. A crew member who stays long enough to reach the top step earns 2.29⁴ times the starting rate at United⁷ and 2.35⁴ times at Frontier², so the choice of airline sets the level while the years of service set the climb. Profit sharing can add a large one-off sum in a good year, 8.9%²⁸ of eligible earnings at Delta for 2025, and nothing in a loss year such as 2020.²⁴

Schedules shape the paycheck too. A scheduled duty day can last 14 hours with a minimum crew, and only the flight time within it is paid, apart from minimum credits and boarding pay, so the same month of work can pay very differently depending on how much of it is spent in the air.¹¹

Location adds a further layer. A median of $126,650 in New York and $47,320 in Florida describe very different pay in the same job, a gap of $79,330 a year at the median.³ For anyone weighing the job, the practical questions are which airline, which base and how long it takes to climb a scale of 13 to 20 steps.

Conclusions

1. Seniority sets the paycheck more than the airline does. At United a year-13 rate of $87.47⁷ is 2.29⁴ times the $38.21 of year one, and at Alaska year 14 pays 2.31⁴ times year one⁹, while starting rates differ by $12.71⁴ per flight hour or TFP credit across the six airlines. The 5.3% fall in the median from 2024 to 2025 is a one-year move in estimates not designed for year-to-year comparison.¹
2. An hour on duty is not an hour paid. Federal rules allow a 14-hour scheduled duty day, up to 20 hours with extra crew, but contracts pay block or credit hours.¹¹ Boarding pay arrived only between 2022 and 2026, and per diem adds $2.85⁹ to $3.04 per hour away on domestic trips¹⁸ and up to $3.63¹³ on international trips.
3. Where a crew member is based decides the local average. New York's mean of $115,670³ is 2.68⁴ times Pennsylvania's $43,130, an imprecise estimate³, and the New York metro's $127,220³⁶ tops the published metros.
4. Pay has grown faster on paper than in the store. The median rose 67% from 2011 to 2025 but only 17% after inflation, and it sits 13% below the 2020 real peak, a year when employment was falling, which can lift a median without any raise.⁸
5. A middle-income job in a high-income industry. The median is 25%⁴ above the all-occupation median of $50,980¹, but the airline pilots' median is 3.65 times the flight-attendant median; about 18,500³⁷ flight-attendant openings a year are projected to 2035.