Difference between airline and commercial pilot??

Question

What's the difference between the two and why do airline pilots get paid more?

Answer 1

Airline pilots are commercial pilots. But anyone who has a commercial pilots licence can fly for money and is not necessacarily a airline pilot.

Answer 2

i cant fly a plane you could use a machine gun or grenades that might help

Answer 3

Airline pilots ARE commercial pilots.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/pilot.h...

The only difference is that airline pilots unions are stronger and they manage to negotiate better contracts.

Good Luck...

Answer 4

No Difference

Answer 5

well if your talking in a pilot in command certification sense

then airline PICs must have an Airline transport license, this is usually for planes with more than 15 seats. while only a commercial license is needed for anything below that. heck private pilots can get type ratings in large business jets, well at least the rich ones can. well the main reason airline pilots get paid more is because they usually have more experience and they can fly expensive equipment. But this is based on flight time, even though I have a commercial pilot cert eith an instrument rating, I only have ~285 hours of flight time, no insurance company would let me be PIC of anything involving passenger operations, while many ATP's have thousands of hours in turbine aircraft and are seen as less of a liability.

bottom line

more experience = more money

unless you get furloughed  

Answer 6

Because airlines are often referred to as "Commerical Aviation" or a "Commerical Airliner"  the pilots are lumped in as a "commercial pilot" when as previously mentioned... any pilot that has his commercial license can be called by that term.  It is slang... and stems from cause of someone calling themselves a pilot that took a few lessons 10 years ago... and someone that acutally  flies an airplane 3-5 days a week for a living.  A commercial pilot could be anyone making a living spotting tuna, fighting forrest fires, flying helicopter traffic reports, etc... or flying for AA, DAL,UAL, NWA etc.

If you hear "airline pilot" that implies someone operating a schedules aircarrier for the purpose of moving passengers...  but could be freight/mail/ etc...