It's said here [0] that they make an average of $160,970 a year.

That's not... rich, not in 2025. That's comfortable in most major American cities, but not rich. And then you have to take into account the fact that these pilots are away from home quite often, and have dozens, if not hundreds, of lives in their hands when they do their jobs, and that makes me think they're fairly compensated for doing the actual labor that the company needs to operate. Meanwhile, the CEOs make more in a year than most Americans will make in an entire lifetime [1]. And that's not even getting into some of the dividends that airlines pay people who just happen to possess a piece of paper.

[0]https://simpleflying.com/salary-us-pilot-2025/ [1]https://onemileatatime.com/insights/highest-paid-airline-ceo...