A Reddit thread posted to r/flying asking about NBAA compensation survey figures for a Challenger 650 pilot-in-command position, based in the Chicago area under Part 91, flying roughly 350 hours annually, highlights a topic that generates constant discussion in the corporate and business aviation community: compensation benchmarking for large-cabin jet operators. The original post is sparse on detail, but the underlying question—what does a PIC on a super-midsize/large-cabin aircraft like the Challenger 650 actually earn in a Part 91 flight department—reflects a recurring need among pilots to validate offers, negotiate raises, or decide whether to make a lateral or upward career move into corporate flying.
The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) Compensation Survey is the industry's most widely cited salary benchmarking tool for Part 91 and Part 91K (fractional/shared ownership) flight departments. Unlike Part 135 charter operators, whose pay scales are often publicized informally through operator job boards, union contracts, or word of mouth, Part 91 corporate flight departments tend to guard compensation details closely, making the NBAA survey and informal peer networks (like this Reddit thread) some of the only windows into actual pay ranges. For an aircraft like the Challenger 650—a large-cabin, transcontinental/intercontinental-capable jet operated by flight departments, charter companies, and fractional providers alike—PIC compensation typically reflects both the aircraft's size class and the low utilization common to Part 91 operations. A reported 350 hours per year is a modest but fairly typical annual flight-hour figure for a corporate flight department, especially compared to Part 135 charter operations that can push crews toward 600-800+ hours annually; this lower utilization is often a selling point for corporate pilots seeking better quality of life, more predictable schedules, and reduced fatigue exposure, even if base pay per flight hour works out lower than charter equivalents.
For working pilots, threads like this matter because compensation transparency remains one of the biggest friction points in business aviation hiring. The pilot shortage and post-pandemic surge in demand for business jet travel drove significant wage inflation across corporate flight departments from 2021 through 2023, and NBAA survey data has increasingly been used by both employers benchmarking competitive offers and pilots negotiating from a position of informed leverage. Geographic market—Chicago being a major corporate aviation hub with significant demand from Fortune 500 flight departments—also plays into compensation, since major metro areas with dense corporate presence tend to command higher pay than departments based in smaller markets, all else being equal.
More broadly, this kind of grassroots salary crowdsourcing on platforms like r/flying reflects a larger industry trend: pilots increasingly rely on peer networks, private Slack/Discord groups, and social media to fill in the gaps left by opaque or subscription-gated data sources like NBAA's survey (which typically requires membership or purchase to access full results). As business aviation hiring remains competitive—driven by fleet growth among fractional operators, charter expansion, and steady OEM deliveries of large-cabin jets like the Challenger 650—expect this kind of informal benchmarking to keep playing an outsized role in how corporate pilots evaluate job offers, especially at Part 91 departments where formal pay scales and union protections are absent, and compensation is often set ad hoc by HR departments or ownership with limited visibility into market rates.