Do you agree with this?

[Pietrantonio]

I've been looking at possibly getting my CFI rating, and I have also been searching the internet for any info about the salary a CFI can make. I came across this, (click on the link) and I'm wondering if you agree with it. If you're a CFI how much do they usually average a year in salary? I hear a lot of CFI's say they make no money. What's your comments, viewpoints, opinions?

http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/l...arrowcode=TR01

[tgrayson]

Originally Posted by Pietrantonio

I've been looking at possibly getting my CFI rating, and I have also been searching the internet for any info about the salary a CFI can make. I came across this, (click on the link) and I'm wondering if you agree with it. If you're a CFI how much do they usually average a year in salary? I hear a lot of CFI's say they make no money. What's your comments, viewpoints, opinions?

http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/l...arrowcode=TR01

I'm curious to know where they got those numbers. If you divide the annual salary by 5, you'll be a lot closer to reality.

[Pietrantonio]

As a CFI, you only get paid by the number of hours flown with students right? or do you get paid too for being at the school even if you dont happen to fly that day?

[tgrayson]

Originally Posted by Pietrantonio

As a CFI, you only get paid by the number of hours flown with students right?

Mostly that.

Originally Posted by Pietrantonio

do you get paid too for being at the school even if you dont happen to fly that day?

Our school used to pay a very few instructors to be there during the day to ensure there would be an instructor available if a potential customer walked in. I don't know how common this is. No school in my area works that way now.

[dc3flyer]

I was a Part 61 instructor and I did not get paid unless I was flying or giving ground instruction. I was the only instructor at the airport. I would sometimes be at the airport 12-14 hours a day and get paid for 3-4. It sucked, but it got me hours and opportunities for other things. Other days I would be at the airport 8 hours and fly 6. I also had the option of not being there at all if I didn't have to fly, but then you run the risk of lost opportunities.

Pay scales vary, but I made $20/hour and gave just over 600 hours of instruction in 10 months... you can do the math. Other schools pay as little as $10/hour but some pay more.

[PanJet]

I've seen numbers like this before, and the only conclusion I've come to is that they might be including or using numbers from training captains at airlines, part 135 ops, etc. and counting them as "flight instructors."

[MidlifeFlyer]

That site and the CFI salary it describes shows up in a discussion every once in a while. I suspect that PanJet is right and that the numbers are based on Part 142 and Part 135/121 level training programs, not CFIs at small Part 61 or even 141 schools.

[mojo6911]

The weather sucked, and my last check for two weeks was like $450 GROSS. It sucks when the weather kills you. Even when the weather is great, it is hard to get more than about 5 hours a day, due to WX, MX, no-shows, runway closures, scheduling conflicts, etc..

Most places I have seen around the DFW area pay between $12-20 for flight or ground. I don't get paid to wait on the student to preflight, Hobbs only, but when I am teaching them ground, that is billable.

[FlyerJosh]

When I taught back in 2000, I made 14/15/16 an hour depending on the course that was being taught (14 for PVT and Ground, 15 for Instrument/Commercial, 16 for CFI/ME).

Bill what you teach. If I had a two hour block with a student, they were going to be billed for about 1.8 or 1.9 of that time. But then again, I TAUGHT the entire time, including during the student's preflight.

General rule of thumb is that if you're up front about how you are going to bill, and you actually make use of the time, very few students will complain about it. I always told my students that if they ever had any issues with how they were billed, to let me know. If I couldn't resolve the issue, I promised to personally take them to the owner or chief instructor. Never had a problem.

How much a CFI is going to make will certainly vary based on the flight school, location, weather, and season. I worked my butt off during the summer to pad the accounts for the winter. (I often logged in excess of 130 hrs of flight/month during the summer months, working 6 1/2 days a week, with every other Sunday off).

That equated to a W2 income of about $25K/year.

[mojo6911]

Originally Posted by FlyerJosh

Bill what you teach. If I had a two hour block with a student, they were going to be billed for about 1.8 or 1.9 of that time. But then again, I TAUGHT the entire time, including during the student's preflight.

There isn't much you can teach on preflight after about the 4th lesson or so, so I don't think it is ethical to bill someone while I just stand there.

I will probably gross 20-25k doing this full time, with no scheduled days off. I let the weather schedule my days off for me. If I was teaching instrument, I would have been able to get more the past month or so.

[dc3flyer]

Originally Posted by mojo6911

There isn't much you can teach on preflight after about the 4th lesson or so, so I don't think it is ethical to bill someone while I just stand there.

You don't have to just stand there.

Once the student is comfortable and competent on preflighting the airplane, this is a good time to "quiz" them, and ask them questions comparable to that of the oral. I also used this time to discuss the lesson for the day.

That being said, I never charged for time other than hobbs time.

[mojo6911]

Originally Posted by dc3flyer

Once the student is comfortable and competent on preflighting the airplane, this is a good time to "quiz" them, and ask them questions comparable to that of the oral. I also used this time to discuss the lesson for the day.

I understand that, but even quizzing them on the preflight just eats into the flight time. There is only so much you can know on the preflight. I like to discuss my lesson for the day before I send them to the plane, so I have their undivided attention and they actually know what they will be doing. To each his own...

[dc3flyer]

Originally Posted by mojo6911

I understand that, but even quizzing them on the preflight just eats into the flight time. There is only so much you can know on the preflight. I like to discuss my lesson for the day before I send them to the plane, so I have their undivided attention and they actually know what they will be doing. To each his own...

I know what you are saying about discussing the lesson before they get to the plane. When I mentioned quizzing them, I didn't mean just on preflight stuff. You can ask them about operating limitations of the plane, systems, fuel requirements, cloud clearences, all types of regs... just things that may be asked later down the road. I found it helped to keep my students on their toes and let me know more about their progression of knowledge.

[nosehair]

Originally Posted by dc3flyer

That being said, I never charged for time other than hobbs time.

OK, you're one of them. You do us all no service, Sir.

I know nothing of you as a person except this one comment, which fires me up big time. That's one of the most biggest problems we have in the instructing business. Too many instructors are willing to give free time for ground time, and it becomes an expected free service. Customers think it is figured into the huge 30 or 40 bucks the flight school is getting, when the instructor is only getting 10-15 bucks for his Hobbs time only, which works out to about 5 to 10 bucks an hour for his time on the job. That's about minimum wage.

That's why we have such a mess with the whole training industry. There are no professionals.

[dc3flyer]

Originally Posted by nosehair

OK, you're one of them. You do us all no service, Sir.

I know nothing of you as a person except this one comment, which fires me up big time. That's one of the most biggest problems we have in the instructing business. Too many instructors are willing to give free time for ground time, and it becomes an expected free service. Customers think it is figured into the huge 30 or 40 bucks the flight school is getting, when the instructor is only getting 10-15 bucks for his Hobbs time only, which works out to about 5 to 10 bucks an hour for his time on the job. That's about minimum wage.

That's why we have such a mess with the whole training industry. There are no professionals.

I may be one of them, but that is who I am. I could have used the preflight time of the lesson to sit in the airport playing Solitare a little longer, or I could walk around outside with my students making them better. I chose the latter, because I wanted my students to know their stuff. Yeah, I could have made an extra $2 from my students, but why?

If I were doing actual "ground" training, such as corss-country planning or checkride prep, I would charge. The first couple of lessons with primary students, I charged for the preflight, because they knew nothing and I was actually "teaching". For asking maybe 5 mock oral questions during a preflight in 10 minutes... give me a break!

All that being said, I was a flight instructor in the middle of po-dunk nowhere at a small airport. My flight school charged $25/hr for me and I was paid $20. No one was getting rich off flight instruction. I pride myself in producing quality pilots, not ripping people off. I also had students that appreciated me and the extra stuff I did. They would drop in and take me to lunch sometimes, or buy my lunch on cross-countries, maybe just buy me a drink while we were doing the post-brief. It all worked out in the end.

[mojo6911]

Originally Posted by dc3flyer

If I were doing actual "ground" training, such as corss-country planning or checkride prep, I would charge. The first couple of lessons with primary students, I charged for the preflight, because they knew nothing and I was actually "teaching". For asking maybe 5 mock oral questions during a preflight in 10 minutes... give me a break!

Right on. It is unprofessional to charge for services you aren't really providing. A student shouldn't be nickeled and dimed.

[moxiepilot]

there is a huge difference between nickel and diming and valuing your time as a professional. If I set up a meeting with a lawyer and talk about my weekend for an hour, do you think that I'm going to get charged for the lawyer's time even though we talked about nothing legal?

nosehair's right on on this one. you can search previous threads on this topic.

[dc3flyer]

Originally Posted by moxiepilot

If I set up a meeting with a lawyer and talk about my weekend for an hour, do you think that I'm going to get charged for the lawyer's time even though we talked about nothing legal?

That's why no one likes lawyers!!

[jrh]

I'm with mojo and dc3 on this one.

Down with the industry! Down with professionalism! Hurt other instructors as much as you can!

We've been over this before...some CFIs charge, some don't. Everybody has reasons for doing it the way they do. I don't feel like getting into this all over again.

[ryanmickG]

Originally Posted by nosehair

OK, you're one of them. You do us all no service, Sir.

You say this....

If you were a student doing a preflight and your instructor starting asking you what the duration of a medical is the charges you for it, would you be ok with that?

I would rather him sit on his ass inside while I did the pre-flight.

Its kinda border line nickel and dimin'.

[moxiepilot]

Originally Posted by jrh

I don't feel like getting into this all over again.

agreed. piper vs. cessna, high wing vs. low wing.

sometimes i don't have the energy...

[nosehair]

Originally Posted by dc3flyer

You don't have to just stand there.

Once the student is comfortable and competent on preflighting the airplane, this is a good time to "quiz" them, and ask them questions comparable to that of the oral. I also used this time to discuss the lesson for the day.

That being said, I never charged for time other than hobbs time.

OK. took the essence of your post to indicate that the pre-flight experience need not be a "waste" of time - that you do things during that time: productive quizzing, discusion, etc., ...and, oh, by the way, I stll don't charge for this time. I only charge Hobbs time. Like the lawyers only charge 'court-in-session' time, or the Dr. only charges for the 5 minutes in his office time, that was the way your post came across to me.

You have put a little more light on it now, with a more detailed account, and of course, each case is individual.

When you talk about lunches, and other 'perks' instead of actual dollars, you are measuring 'job satisfaction' against actual money, and the line becomes blurry. I know. I 'm all over it too, but I'm salaried now.

The original poster is looking for information about CFI pay, and this is a hot button. He needs to know about it. It has a profound effect on an hourly paid instructor at a school with lots of students.

There isn't time to BS for any significant time. Sure, I'm gonna take a few minutes saying "howsitgoing?" before we get into the lesson, and there may be an occasional 5 minute break from actual instruction during this 2 to 3 hour session I am with the student, but that is where the "professionalisim" comes in. The student should feel he is getting the instructor's time. If you are charging from start to stop, there should be start to stop interaction. The instructor can do quite a bit during pre-flight activities to teach and/or simply expedite the process of preparing for the flight. The 'tradition' of sending the student out to pre-flight while the instructor 'sits-on-his-ass', (more likely catching up on student paperwork) has created a misperception that we shouldn't be paid unless the engine is running or our mouth is running.

That's who you hurt when you boast that you don't charge for pre-flight time.
That nickel-and-diming all day adds up.

[Ralgha]

When I was instructing I charged for the entire scheduled block (unless we finished [completely] early, then it stopped when we did). I also had a late policy for the student, and for myself. I discussed it with each student first thing, and as soon as they could do a proper pre-flight, I encouraged them to book the aircraft starting 15 minutes earlier than me and have their preflight done by the time our lesson time came around. Most did this, and it worked great for everyone involved. They got the most out of their scheduled lesson, and none of my time was wasted waiting for them to preflight.

I never had a single complaint about my billing policies. No one batted an eye when we discussed it. Billing by hobbs time is a crap policy, and if the service you provide is only worth that much, then you're in the wrong job.

[jrh]

Originally Posted by Ralgha

Billing by hobbs time is a crap policy, and if the service you provide is only worth that much, then you're in the wrong job.

Nice job of making a blanket statement to cover all kinds of situations you're not familiar with. Wouldn't it be great if the world were actually that black and white? That way you could just figure out the correct way to do things and always be right.

Based on your logic, my 11,000+ hour tailwheel instructor, who charges $65/hr, based strictly on hobbs time, is in the wrong job.

I guess for him, the "wrong job" means one that he loves, makes a living at, and has a lot of freedom at...even with his "crap policy" that works just fine.

That's alright. I'm in the wrong job too.

While we're on the subject, maybe you could answer this--if one instructor charges $35/hour and tacks on 0.2 hours for ground time to each lesson ($42/lesson, assuming one hour lessons), while another instructor charges $42/hour but doesn't bother with tacking on ground time, who do you think the student will feel better about?

Not that it matters much one way or another, but I'd take the $42/hr instructor who didn't make me feel like I was on the clock every second I was with him. The money's the same either way and I prefer the psycological element of not feeling rushed.

Of course, that "not that it matters much" statement is key here. We're talking about a difference of a few bucks one way or the other. I just get pissed when people are so close-minded as to think there is one and only one way to make money. Life, and business, doesn't work like that. Just because I choose to do it one way doesn't mean I go around telling everybody else it has to be done my way.




Goodness, I try to stay out of these things and I can't hold myself back...

[GreenDayPilot]

Ok, I won't get into the lil' battle that's going on, but I will tell you this about my past CFI jobs.

LA 2004- I was a new CFI and charged my students per the hobbs an a lil' extra for pre and post flight. I was freelance and charged $25/hour. I made about $40 for a 1 hour flight (w/pre and post flight time). I wasn't flying much, so I was only coming in with like $1300 a month.

Vegas 2005- I worked at a school that charged like $40/hour for flight instruction, but they only paid the instructor $15 of that $40 (what a rip, I know). The cool thing was that I was flying a lot so my time was racking up quickly and I was making enough to survive. I flew about 80 hours a month, but charged for about 110 hours. It gives you and idea of the time that charged while we were on the ground (pre/post flight). Anyway, so I made about $1500-1800/month.

LA 2006-present- I charge for every minute they book me for now. I'm tired of being a nice guy. I realized that I spent too much money on this career to be giving free time away. They book me for two hours and I'll charge them for 2 hours. I'm charging $30 dollars and hour and I think its a great deal. I can easily charge $50 in the area I fly and only charge for the hobbs time, but that just looks bad. I wasn't flying much so I got a job in bakersfield that offered a salary pay.

Bakersfield 2006-present- I get paid about a $35k anual salary for the first year of work. Great thing about this job is that it comes with full benefits and they'll pay you whether you fly or not. Paid sick leave and vacation days are included too... things that didn't come with all the previous CFI jobs.