This is crazy! Any sources for this?

http://www.pilotjobsnetwork.com/jobs/Mesa - First Officer (copilot) in their first year at the company makes $19/hour, and is guaranteed 76 hours/month. Equates to $17,328 pre-tax. It's why so many regional pilots commute, because they can't afford to live near the major airport which they're based at. The result is fatigued or sick (no pay if you call in sick) pilots operating these flights.

But hey, supply and demand. They wouldn't be able to pay so little if pilots weren't applying, and that won't change anytime soon because flying at a regional for a few years is a way to build hours and move on up to the mainline airline.

I'm pretty sure that "per hour" is "block hours", such that they are paid only when the door shuts.

So there's a fair amount of waiting around that's uncompensated. There is a per-diem, but I don't think it goes beyond average cost for meals, lodging, etc.

Their actual typical monthly hours would be more informative than their contractual guarantee.

Looks like the actual total at Mesa (including per diems, etc.) was $20,183 last year[1].

[1] https://www.alpa.org/news-and-events/news-room/2016-08-16-st...

It says on that chart that they did the same thing as your above comment, multiplying the guaranteed hours by the minimum hourly wage.

It could well be that they all work the minimum hours. I doubt it, this would be more expensive for the airline.

Well they're limited by the FAA to 1000 hours / year, so they'd have to be averaging 83 hours/month at most.