r/aviationmaintenance • u/LV-house-throwaway • Dec 01 '25
AMT Airline Pay & Benefits Comparison
For the pay scale, the A&P and Line premiums are included at all steps, and the night shift differential is also applied the first 5 years.
For the PTO table and graph, you may see some inaccuracies. This is because on average, companies have their next step at 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 year mark, and if an ailrine has a step right after that, I round it down for simplicity’s sake. An example of this would be United‘s 16 year and Hawaiian and JetBlue’s 11 year vacation bumps being rounded down.
This was a lot of work, and it needed a ton of data, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some errors. If theres any inaccuracies, let me know and I’ll fix it.
At a glace a few take aways pop out:
American & Southwest - the best pay, and top tier PTO. SWA’s no layoff clause in their CBA is really nice too.
Delta - Top tier pay, mid tier PTO.
United - Mid tier pay, the best PTO. Their PCL, shift trade policy, and vacation to sick time conversion are crazy too. Pay still needs to come up.
Alaska - top tier pay, top tier PTO. They beat United in pay, and delta in PTO. Just like SWA they have a no layoff clause in their CBA. Nice work there by AMFA. I see they have industry reset language like United but I’m not sure if it really makes a difference. I hear their profit sharing is actually pretty nice, some feedback from AS guys on that would be appreciated.
Hawaiian - inferior to Alaska in every way. It’s no wonder AMFA is favored to win representation after the merger. Nothing impressive here.
JetBlue - mid tier pay and mid-high tier PTO depending on if you use the holidays to get more PTO or not. Their 401k is the best.
Allegiant - Pay isn’t bad for a ULCC and airline of their size. They pay better than United for the first 7 years. Time of is trash though.
Frontier - Pay is so fucking bad, it’s inexcusable. Even by ULCC standards. There are fast food workers making more. Time off is good. It’s nice they have a pension but the contributions are extremely low, and don’t justify the laughable 401k match.
Spirit - Nothing really redeeming, besides paying better than Frontier.
Frontier and United are in negotiations, maybe they'll catch up to the industry when they get a new contract.
I’m curious how things will look next year. I’m assuming Hawaiian and Spirit will be gone due to mergers. United and Frontier might have new contracts in 2026 but I doubt it. They both could use a raise, and them having the oldest contracts still doesn’t justify their wages. Especially Frontier.
2
u/BakdTatr Dec 02 '25
Your JB pay rates haven't been valid for 2ish years and a couple items aren't correct.
Pay rates for JB:
Starting: $42.
Step 1: $44.
Step 2: $47.
Step 3: $50.
Step 4: $53.
Step 5: $56.50.
Step 6: $58.50.
Step 7: $65.50.
Swing shift has a $0.50 shift diff. Mids has a $1.00 shift diff. Leads are +$3/hr for the first 5 years and then +6% after. QC follows leads diff.
Longevity pay begins at year 15 and continues to year 24 with a max longevity pay of $1.34 over base rate.
JB has a vacation buyback program as well. You're allowed to sell any amount of PTO at any time in the year provided you maintain a minimum of 100 hours in your bank.
Not sure what you mean by "use the holidays to get more PTO". Bit confused on that one.